Cherished memories and life moments can be victims of Alzheimer’s
If you were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which memories would be yours to keep?
I’d like to think that the most important moments in my life – playing in my grandmother’s garden as a child, falling in love, stepping foot on foreign soil for the first time – would be the memories that linger.
But for most living with this disease, the “big things” start to fade away, and what’s left is the basics of just getting by.
Memory is fickle, though. Elaine Pfender, of McDonald, has been steadily declining over the past couple months, but she has a remarkable memory when it comes to certain things.
Her husband, Fred, said she knows if one of the dozen bracelets she wears daily is missing, and she can describe it in detail. Fred once told Elaine he liked her black bracelet most, and Elaine sometimes tries to give that particular bracelet to him, completely unprompted.
For many women (and probably some men, too), jewelry holds sentimental value, especially if it was a gift.
Elaine does not have the cognitive function to explain why the bracelets are meaningful, but the fact is that she knows – perhaps intuitively – that they are.
I find that incredible.
And while Elaine has noticeably changed and grown more solemn and withdrawn, it’s clear that a part of her is still hanging on.