Remembering A Sister-in-Law

Cemeteries were visited and flowers were placed on head stones this weekend. 

One of the ones visited is very tiny and sits on a small rise surrounded by miles of agricultural land with fields of wheat, canola, and alfalfa. That is where my husband's late sister rests. The scent of alfalfa blooms waft in the breeze over the dusty markers inside a chain-link fence.  It isn't your normal manicured grave site.  It's just dirt.

She began showing signs of something being not right soon after she turned 50.  We noticed that she couldn't remember the rules of our Saturday night card games.  Her symptoms progressed causing her to loose her job working for an accountant.  She tried working at lesser jobs, but she couldn't keep up with any of them.   She would ride her bike to the store and forget why she was there.  She might wake up in the morning and find all of her kitchen towels and oven mitts on her patio.  A difficult thing for us to  handle was how she became suspicious and accusatory.

One physician initially diagnosed Alzheimer's;  her later doctors called it dementia and would not qualify it. For one thing, Alzheimer's in a younger person usually brings death within 5 years.  She died in April of 2015,  which was about 15 years after diagnosis.  There was no autopsy.

I remember how scared she was in the beginning that she would forget who everyone was. We prayed together about it on more than one occasion.   That was one of the weird things about her symptoms.  She forgot how to use a straw, and a spoon.  Yet, she always seemed to know us and her kids and grand-kids.  I attribute that to her calling out to God in anguish.  No, she wasn't healed, but she didn't forget who she was.

We tried to help her, to be there for her, and to protect her to the best of our ability.  Two of her former daughters-in-law stepped up to help her in times of need.  They were bright spots in her life.

Unfortunately there were times that things happened because she was so vulnerable. There was abuse by men.  There was even  abuse by the spouse of one of her children.  We hired an elder abuse attorney and got her placed in a guardianship where those people had no access to her.  Damage was done to relationships and financial hardships ensued. 

An Adult Protective Service Social Worker told us she dealt daily with "children" who abused their parents.  That is a statistic that is difficult to understand.  We recognized the truth having been helpers to two different family members who were financially abused by their "kid."  In both instances we got an attorney and fought for their dignity.

As for who she was before this dreadful disease changed her?  She had the most beautiful eyes.  When we had fun she laughed until she wet her pants, and then laughed more.  She was intelligent but started having kids too young so didn't get a college degree. Yard Sales were a passion and she could always find the treasures.    She could remodel a house using her own hands and tools.  Then, she could decorate with her eye for beauty and design.  She fell in love often.  Her heart was broken an equal number of times.  She thought the sun rose and set on her grandpops, her dad, and her brother.  Her relationship with her mother was complicated. 

Today I recalled one of our last visits to the dementia convalescent center.  My husband turned on a song from the sixties, He gently pulled his sisters frail body up and danced her across the dining room, holding her with all his strength so she wouldn't slide onto the floor.  She whispered his name and tried to sing along.   It wasn't long after this that she passed away.


Recently the news mentioned breakthroughs in certain types of dementia treatment.  I hope that researchers find a cure today.