Walking Together

It was a glorious late summer morning at the Detroit Zoo on Saturday. We were all in our purple shirts, smiling for the camera. Mom sat in her wheelchair, surrounded by my sisters, Barbara, Theresa, Shirley, and me. We were there for “the walk” – but most important we were there together.

How profound, I thought, as Barbara and I made our way to the opening ceremony for the two-mile walk. This is the first time since January that we did anything social together. It was Mom’s dementia that caused the riff eight months ago, and it’s that same dementia that brought us back together this morning.

The Walk to End Alzheimer’s is something we can all agree on. We were there to help raise funds and awareness for the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, for the disease that affects five million Americans, for the disease that is stealing the future of our loved ones. http://www.alz.org/walk/

The Walk to End Alzheimer’s is going on 600 communities around the country this year. The walk at the Detroit Zoo is one of 21 in Michigan.

Though we don’t know if it’s actually Alzheimer’s that is causing our mom’s dementia, we know that the limitations are the same. And my sisters and I want to be part of the movement that is trying to do something about it.

Our lives have been touched severly since we realized that Mom can’t live alone. She can’t conduct most of her necessary daily activities by herself without getting into trouble.

I wrote in my June 18 blog about the disagreement my siblings and I had over the level of care we believed Mom needed after Dad died 15 months ago. (See For the True Angels, It’s a Calling). This was no small disagreement. It ripped Barb and I apart after spending more than a year talking and visiting and planning and caring for our parents together. I missed her and told her so in a text one morning. “I don’t feel the same way,” she texted back.

Now, as we walked through the zoo with thousands of others in purple shirts, some with photos of elderly loved ones on their shirts, I felt that was all behind us. A little later we helped Mom into the car, folded her wheelchair and put it in the trunk, I knew a bigger fight lies ahead: the fight to end Alzheimer’s.

n  Anne Marie Gattari is owner of BrightStar of Grosse Pointe / Macomb. 586.279.3610.  am.gattari@brightstarcare.com; http://brightstarcare.com/grosse-pointesoutheast-macomb