My 83-year-old mother, who took lessons long ago, chuckles, “She should do what I did—find the best-looking teacher she can!”
“Mom, she’s 13; that’s terrible advice! What kind of grandmother are you?”
We share a laugh as she recounts her story about taking lessons to quit smoking while raising six children as a stay-at-home mom. She often overlooks my daughter’s current situation because people with Alzheimer’s tend to have a stronger grasp on older memories than recent ones. Though still early in the disease, she has started to drift between different time periods during our calls from the assisted-living facility.
My mother has always had a knack for humor, and since I became a stay-at-home dad who writes about parenting, our connection has deepened. Our phone conversations now often resemble a sitcom that spans generations.
Out of curiosity, I recently picked up a book my mother frequently referred to as her favorite: Erma Bombeck’s If Life is a Bowl of Cherries—What Am I Doing in the Pits? From the very first line, I understood why my mom resonated with Bombeck, who writes, “I’ve always worried a lot and frankly I’m good at it.” After humorously stating, “I worry about scientists discovering someday that lettuce has been fattening all along,” Bombeck reveals the core of her message: “But mostly, I worry about surviving…. That’s what this book is all about.”
Humor has also been my mother’s way of coping with life’s challenges: raising six kids, going through a divorce after 28 years, facing macular degeneration that robbed her of reading her cherished books, and now, dealing with the onset of Alzheimer’s. By the end of the introduction, I felt a lump in my throat.
The book is structured in vignettes, and while some have lost their relevance since their publication in 1971, many remain just as applicable today. Bombeck offers a family survival manual on topics like “Replacing a Toilet Tissue Spindle,” “Closing a Door,” and “Operating a Clothes Hamper.” Classic observations include “There, but for the grace of a babysitter go I,” and “Giving children responsibility may help them grow; others believe it just raises your insurance rates.”
However, Bombeck’s tone shifts late in the book in a section about her own mother, titled “When Did I Become the Mother and the Mother Become the Child?” She articulates that the “transition comes slowly…. The transferring of responsibility…. As your own children grow strong and independent, the mother becomes more childlike.” The child “isn’t ready yet to carry the burden. But the course is set.”
It felt as if my mother was communicating with me through Bombeck’s words, blending humor with poignancy, the pits with the cherries. Alzheimer’s has indeed begun to take things from her. Sometimes, in the middle of our conversations, she simply says, “I have no words.” She describes the “numbness” that envelops her and admits, “I can see what the disease is doing to me.” On my end of the line, I struggle to find words for a different reason.
Alzheimer’s has also started to blur the markers of time. My siblings and I grapple with how to handle forgotten family birthdays. While we can acknowledge her grandchildren’s birthdays, our own are more complicated: Should we remind her of our birthdays when she forgets, assuming she’d want to know? Or do we spare her the guilt and pain that arises from forgetting? I have chosen the latter, yet neither option feels just right.
Conversely, the timeless quality of the disease sometimes offers unexpected relief. During her moments of clarity, Mom has shared that her short-term memory loss allows her to worry less and laugh more. She speaks of the “gift” of being “suspended in time” with no pressure to remember. These fleeting moments of liberation from time, worry, and memory constraints are among the cherries still present in her life.
Bombeck’s work teaches that, even late in life, the cherries of joy still exist; we just need to dig a bit deeper to find them. Indeed, such moments are essential for survival. One special way to connect is by reading and sharing a loved one’s favorite book.
As I read the lighter passages from my mother’s cherished book to her over the phone, sometimes she recalled how she felt upon first reading them; other times, her shifting mind processed them as if they were brand new. Regardless, we shared a delightful, humorous, and intimate experience—a true treasure for both of us.
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In summary, navigating Alzheimer’s with humor and understanding can create meaningful moments of connection and joy, even in challenging times.