Stephen King was on the Today Show this last week to talk about his most recent book. It is about a man who has lost faith and starts questioning everything he believes in. They asked him if this book represented a truth in his own life that he too was questioning faith, and asked him if death was what he feared most. His answer resounded with the truth of my own life. He is not afraid of death. His writings were just musings. In reality he has no fear of death. No, his greatest fear is not death. It is Alzheimer's. The fear that this sickness might steal his last years.
As a woman of deep faith, with a family history of generation after generation of my matriarchs having their last years stolen from them by this disease, Stephen Kings fears resonate within me. Death I do not fear. It is something I will gladly welcome. Death will not be an end. But Alzheimer's... that will be an end. A prison to my last days that will steal all that the time before has given me.
Tonight I sat with my mother as I have most Wednesday's for the last several years. I think it is four years now we have had this tradition. We go wine tasting together. This last winter, almost a year now, my father retired and he now goes with us. I so looked forward to when he would retire and be able to finally join us in this tradition. It's odd that now I can't remember him not being there. We spent 3 years in this tradition with him only rarely being there, but already he is a key to these nights that I can't separate him from the memory.
If anyone has reason to fear the fate of this identity stealer, it would be my mother. She is one generation closer to this horror of a genetic prison, and one generation potentially removed from a cure. At least for me there is more time. My mother still has time, and God willing will never know the reality her mother currently is in. But still there are no guarantees as time marches on.
She turned to me tonight and said "if I ever get Alzheimer's and am in a nursing home, promise me you will bring me good wine." I laughed and said I promise you I will, and I will drink it with you. We made light of the conversation, with my Dad joking her response would not excitement over the company, but concern over others stealing what she perceived as the good wine out of her cellar. The confusion does sound a little too real. But tonight we'll have a good laugh. And tonight I'll make a promise to myself that if this conversation ever becomes more than a light musing, I will follow through with my promise made. The location may change, but Wednesdays will always be our tradition.
