JOAN’S BLOG – MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013 – WHAT ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT FRIENDSHIP

A lot has been written on our message boards and in my blogs about the state of friendships when a couple lives with Alzheimer’s Disease. In so many cases, old friends disappear, either because they do not want to listen to our Alzheimer problems, their friend with Alzheimer’s Disease can no longer participate in activities, they do not want to watch their friend fade away (regardless of the fact that we must watch it every single day), or a host of other reasons. We really can do nothing about those people, but let them go.

Some people, although very few, have the guts to tell the truth. A man who had been a friend and neighbor of ours for 20 years when we lived in Massachusetts, wrote to tell me that he was sorry that he was such a coward, but he wanted to remember Sid as he used to be, and did not want to hear about his decline into Alzheimer’s Disease. Maybe I should have been angry and offended, but instead I was grateful that he stepped up and told the truth, however distasteful his admission.

It is the friends who have supported me through this Alzheimer ordeal who have taught me how to be a friend. When I placed Sid into the nursing home two months ago, I was paralyzed with grief. It was the nightly and weekly phone calls from the old friends in Massachusetts and the new Alzheimer friends here in Florida, that pulled me through. They called to find out how I was doing; if I was eating; if I was sleeping. They called to let me talk. One friend told me that she was there for me day and night. If I needed to call her in the middle of the night, I should do so. ( I did not, but it was comforting to know that I could) Often, they said nothing and let me cry. Those nightly connections made me feel less alone and helped me talk through my grief.

Then one day, a life long friend told me that she had felt abandoned by me during the last 2 years of my Alzheimer immersion. She said that she was going through some issues also, and was unable to discuss them with me because all I talked about was my Alzheimer misery. Since we have been friends for over 40 years, we were able to talk through our differences and repair our relationship.

However, her statement about my self centeredness, along with the kindness of my phone buddies, made me examine the meaning of friendship. I realized that just because I was experiencing pain and misery did not mean that I should stop being a friend to others; that no matter what difficulties I was enduring or may endure in the future, I should always make an effort to be a caring, listening friend, as others have been to me.

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