Eating Daisies

From time to time I find the progress of Mother's Alzheimer's disease, just too much to think about.  Last week as I left the home after visiting her, I found myself in tears.  It is usually the small changes that make me weep.  I think it is because I expect the big changes - incontinence, forgetting, having trouble walking - but the small changes are like a slap across the face.

The leaves have been so beautiful, and I thought I could share some of them with Mother.  She has always been an outdoor person and loved the trees and the fall colors.  I walked the backyard and chose the most perfect yellow and red leaves I could find.  But it was one of those days, and when I showed the leaves to her, she yelled, "Cookies!", snatched them from my hand and had them in her mouth in a split second.  I was stunned, but managed to get the leaves out of her mouth.  Silly me, I tried it again.  I held them away from her and pointed out the colors and pattern, and within a second they were in her mouth again.  Once again I got them away from her and went and found a cookie for her.

Eating the nonedible (paper, dirt, flowers) is called pica, and it is a disease.  In Mother's case, it is a result of the Alzheimer's.  Last year she began to eat flowers from arrangements in the home.  This summer, I had to stop taking her flowers because she was eating them. This is what made me cry.  Mother loved flowers.  The last few times I took flowers to her, she cried and kept saying "how beautiful."  Now that is gone.  Of course I can take artificial flowers, but it is not the same.  Alzheimer's is stealing even the small pleasures of beauty from her.  I weep.  I rage.  But that part of her remains stolen.