Granted, this well-written essay in the Sunday, March 22nd NYT’s Modern Love column is written by a grandson who doesn’t appear to do any of the day to day care…but he makes important observations about the potential healing power of Alzheimer’s. In his family’s case, the disease disrupted deeply rooted rituals of disdain between mother and daughter – enough so to bring the family back together. It’s worth a read.
Thanks for mentioning this. Since I’ve been out of town, I haven’t even glanced at the Sunday Times. However, one of the things I was doing in the “in between times” of my traveling weekend was to code the narrative responses of a study I’m doing of college students’ responses to having grandparents with dementia. I’m quite moved by many of their responses and hope that eventually, I can adequately represent them in some kind of article that describes what they’re teaching me.