Memories
It is sad, but once a person's life becomes destroyed by Alzheimer's we often forget all of the happy memories that filled our lives and hearts.
I have been blessed to have many happy memories of special times and moments shared with my beloved mother, and I thought I would share just a few of them with you.
I will be adding to my list of memories from time to time.
Alzheimer's and its' terrors and horrors replaced so many of these memories for the last couple years of mom's life.
Some of my best memories of mom revolve around Christmas. Every year she would let me have one gift before Santa delivered the rest. Each and every year "Christmas Carol" would leave me one extra special present. I can remember exactly which one was my favorite "before" Christmas gift. It was a huge Halloween pinball machine which kept me entertained for hours!
When I was small I was sick every year from Halloween right until after the first of the year. Mom tried her best to keep me company and to entertain me. I can still feel her tender and cool touch on my burning forehead as she tried to make me laugh and forget about just how sick I really was.
Mom was my one and only playmate for most of my life. I could not go outside and play alot because of illness, and she became every cartoon character and every tv star that I loved. We would spend hours at a time in our own fantasy world and I loved and cherished those hours.
Mom could do thee world's best impersonation of the cartoon character Goofy! I can still hear her saying, "Well...helllooo there Ellen," in her best Goofy voice!
When I was about six years old and had just returned to school from a long illness, mom truly saved my life. My parents had dropped me off at school on a frigid winter's day not knowing that school had been cancelled. Something made my mom tell my father to turn around and go back to the school. She had a premonition that I was in trouble and needed her. She found me
standing outside of the locked school doors crying and all by myself. If she had not come back for me something terrible would have happened to me.
Mom was the mother to all the "lost" and "unwanted" children in the neighborhood. She always had our back porch filled with kids. She loved to teach them by playing school with them. She would spend hours helping them learn how to read, to write, to do math, etc. She loved and praised them and made them feel as though they were important. That was one of her greatest qualities. She made you feel important and loved!
I can remember when I was learning how to drive and my father became more of a terror in my life than usual. He would scream at me so loudly when he had to go out driving with me that one time the State Police pulled us over on the highway and asked me if I was alright.
Well, on one particular day my father had screamed at me so loudly that I came home crying and told mom I was never ever going to drive again. I can remember her telling me that she did not want me to give up....that she did not want my father to destroy my life like he had destroyed hers. She told me that she wanted me to be independent and to be able to drive. If she had not said that to me I never would have gotten back into that car and driven again.
As you can see, memories of my beloved mother were full of love, tenderness and oh so much joy! Not even a monster such as Alzheimer's could take these precious memories and gifts of undying love from me....
As mom's memory became worse I tried my best to think of some kind of "games" we could play that would possibly help to keep her mind active. She was always a wonderful speller and had won many a Spelling Bee as a child. So I decided to play the Spelling Bee game with her and she loved it!
I shall always remember the big proud smile on her face whenever she would win the Spelling Bee. I can still hear her saying, "Wanna play the game! Wanna play the game!"
It is winter time now and the holidays, and more people are baking cookies. This
makes me remember mom baking the world's best homemade chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal cookies. Nothing better than licking the bowl while they were baking..the sweet aroma filling the room...a mother's undying love within my heart...
Tonite is New Year's Eve and it brings back fond memories of "parties" mom and I would have when I was small.
My father would go to the bar every year on New Year's Eve and bring me back all of the horns and paper hats, etc. I would save them and then the next year mom and I would use them. We would sit at my little table and she would serve us pretend drinks and we would have our hats on and would blow our horns and shake our noise makers. All was right with my world back then....
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