An Amazing Letter from a Son to His Mother with Alzheimer’s Disease

Here is just one example of the benefits to belonging to an online support group.  The group I belong to is called “Memory People” on Facebook. I have been at times overwhelmed with the supportive and honest conversations between those with Dementia and the Caregivers of those with Memory Loss. I want you to know that nothing communicated in the Memory People group is for public use without authorization.  Both Mother and son have given me the honor of publishing this letter on the blog, as to help others.  A big “Thanks” goes out to both of them.  🙂

This is an Amazing letter from a Son to his Mother with Alzheimer’s Disease.  The insight and guidance given is incredible and precious.  His Mothers says she reads it every day.  Enjoy!

Mom,

Maybe it’s not so bad to slowly lose memories: you won’t even know it’s happening until you try to remember it and it’s gone. Rather than worry, I say submit to the chaos…even when you don’t remember who the people are right in front of you, just know always that you are surrounded by people that love you. What more could any person wish?

Never submit to despair: it’s a universal law of nature all things must obey: they are created, they’re around for a while, then they are returned to nature. Rocks, trees, stars, planets, and people: we all exist only for some time. Enjoy the time you do have, because you are one of the few lucky individuals that will ever get to have any time to enjoy at all. Of all the billions of people that came before you, the trillions of plants and animals that came before us, the number of things that never existed is even larger.

So create, you creature! Write words, draw pictures; ideas are of no use to anyone unless they’re put down somewhere. Consider this: every sentence you read of mine, I am transferring thoughts into your head. You are here with me now as I write these words. You will always be with me, for as we read these words, we are of one mind. This magic that we call reading is time travel for author and reader alike. I am with you in the future, dear reader, and you are with me in the past, your humble author.

Try this…imagine the time before you were born. Of course you can’t, not exactly anyway…you can only be told about it from witnesses: pictures, books, films, etc.

Now try to imagine ten million years from now. Of course we can’t do that either. We can hope for things to happen, but anything we hope for is pure fiction: useless except as art.

So this time in the middle, the time that you’re around and breathing, that’s the special time. Not any particular time at all, but that entire time, all of it. Every beat of your heart is a miracle of nature. Every living thing is the pinnacle of creation; every cell is divine.

We are of this lonely universe, which is slowly but surely rending all matter back into the energy it was made of. So enjoy your existence…there is no time EXCEPT the present! One long stream of nows that we call the past, and another stream of nows that we call the future, with one, just one, right there in the middle right…..about….now!

As we forget the past and ignore the future, we live more and more ‘in the now’. Soon, every movie you see will be brand new! Later, every great new song will be brand new! Even later, every hilarious commercial will be enjoyable all over again, forever! Then still later, every person that enters the room will be someone new to meet! Oh how much fun that could be, like being a kid all over again. Scary, but exciting…change is inevitable.

So always keep that curiosity, that wonder, of being in this world, for you are one of the lucky ones. Know deeply that you are loved, and that all is right in the universe, whether it’s all right with us or not.

Love,

Ken