by Thomas Russell

Created on: September 12, 2008   Last Updated: January 31, 2009

I watched as the nurse handed my mother-in-law some pills to swallow. Holding them in her hand, she looked around and asked with a blank stare, "Ok, what do I do with these now?" The nurse had to explain to her that she needed to swallow the pills. Her response was, "Oh, my, I guess that might be a good idea."

When you see something like that, it's easy to see how Alzheimer's disease can sap any remaining dignity from a life that had so much zest. In that instance, you just wanted to tell her, "Well, you should know that if you have pills in your hand that you are meant to swallow them." But you know it would only be a fruitless attempt at keeping her mind sharp.

For me, I can deal with the sad idea that the woman I've known for for twenty years now has the mental acuity of a one-year old. For my wife, however, I see the anguish in her face constantly because her mother doesn't even remember her name. You want to be a realist and accept the fact that the woman who bore you is now relegated to sitting in a wheelchair trying desperately to function as a normal human being. But the emotional strain of watching the mind deteriorate exponentially to the point of unrecognizability is heartbreaking to watch. The thing that is so frustrating is most of the time she doesn't even realize she's doing something out of the norm. It's her way of life, just a shell of the vibrant woman she used to be.

What I struggle with is in looking at her and listening to her in her confused state is how vulnerable life is. Am I next? As a writer, I cannot even fathom what it would be like if this one all consuming passion I have could someday be stripped from me. I think most anybody at some point in his life has a relative or family member who suffers from Alzheimer's, but I'd be willing to guess that this thought comes to mind quite frequently: "Thank God it's not me suffering from this horrible disease." Why not you? Some of the more famous people have succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease: President Ronald Reagan, Actor Charlton Heston, Estelle Getty, etc. But again, it's somebody you have no connection with on a personal level, so it's easy to separate yourself from that reality.

I guess the truth of the matter is don't take your life for granted because it could be snuffed out in an instant, or in my mother-in-law's case, an agonizingly slow path of memory-sapping death. No trips down memory lane anymore. That road is blocked off permanently.

The haunting words that famous auther Og Mandino

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