When my aging mom thought the Christmas tree was a wondrous new invention, we had to laugh
There's a lot that's terrible about Alzheimer’s. But her joy that year was a bright spot
This First Person column is written by Gavin Crawford, host of the CBC podcast, Let's Not Be Kidding. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
This is a funny story.
This is a sad story.
This is both of those things.
In 2018, my mom's short-term memory was gone. Even more concerning was the fact that she didn't want to go to the mall anymore.
You have to understand something about my mother pre-memory loss. My mother could close any mall in any country and still not have bought anything. My mother, in her prime, was the Serena Williams of browsing.
Just to give you an idea, several years ago at the King of Prussia Mall — America's third-largest shopping centre on the outskirts of Philadelphia — my mother was browsing in a clothing store when a security guard rushed in.
"There's a gas leak," the guard said. "Everyone needs to leave."
My mother was in the changing room, so I was left to relay the message. I knocked on the door and told her about the security guard. And the leak. And the evacuation order.
"What do you think?" She asked, sporting a cool beige jacket over an emerald-green blouse.
"Uh. I think we have to leave," I said. "There's a gas leak."
"Oh, Gavin!" my mother chuckled, "You really will say anything to get me out of the mall!" And then she whisked back into the changing room to try on the next outfit.
I did eventually manage to drag her from the mall, once again not having purchased anything.
As we passed an ambulance loading up an unconscious shopper, my mother gave me a withering look; I think she firmly believed I must have somehow orchestrated a gas leak just to get her out there.
But in those later years, as her disease progressed she lost all interest in the mall.
It was a huge change — one we first noticed some years ago. I think her disinterest in shopping was the first real sign confirming her diagnosis. At the time, I didn't want to see it.
In 2018, my parents had flown to Toronto from Lethbridge, Alta., where they live and where I was raised — to spend Christmas with me and my husband, Kyle.
We had gone together to the Eaton Centre — me, Kyle and my mom.
Normally, we wouldn't shop together. Normally, my mother would find it annoying — find me annoying — because she doesn't like to be rushed. Normally we would say, "Let's meet by the fountain at two o'clock," or whatever, with the tacit understanding that my mom will come sauntering up to the fountain at 2:45 p.m. swearing she thought we said 2:30 p.m. But that year, it started to become clear that there was no "normally" anymore.
Kyle trundled off to buy some gifts. I did the same. Before I left, I noticed my mother lingering. Just slightly. Like she was uncertain where to begin. It was unnerving — like watching Serena momentarily trying to decide which end of the racket to hold. A few hours later, Kyle and I returned to find my mother already waiting for us at the meeting point.
"I don't think she ever left," Kyle muttered.
"No," I said to him. There's no way my mom just sat passively in the middle of the Eaton Centre. "She's just on time for once," I told him.
"She has no bags," he responded.
"That's hardly unusual," I replied. "She never buys anything until at least the third trip."
But deep down I knew Kyle was right.
"So...what stores did you hit?" I asked my mom, super casual.
"Oh, you know," she said. "The usual. I just didn't find anything special."
It was a lie. A lie I chose to believe.
One that became pretty much impossible to hang onto over the next few weeks.
Part of the reason my parents had chosen to visit us that Christmas, I suspect, was because my father needed a break. My mother had become, well, a lot. She asked questions constantly, repeating them at regular intervals.
In a lot of ways, minute-by-minute at least, she was still herself. But if we panned out just slightly and looked at a larger chunk of time, we noticed that her conversations weren't really conversations at all but recycled loops of things she said just a few minutes ago. That winter was the coldest we'd seen in Toronto in a long time. The temperature hovered around -25 C for most of the month. I was stuck in my house with my parents for three weeks.
Don't get me wrong; we were happy to have them. Kyle and I went all out for their visit. We put up a huge tree, which Kyle meticulously decorated. He has a great eye. The tree was elegant, trimmed in brown and gold. Honestly, it would have been at home in the display window of the Bay's flagship store on Queen Street. It was a genuinely impressive tree and every day, like clockwork, it would genuinely impress my mother.
"That looks so good," she would exclaim, seeing it — once again — for the very first time.
"Yes," I would agree, not for the first time. "Yes, it's a lovely tree."
"Who's idea was it to bring a tree inside? She would ask, amazed and delighted.
Initially, I was taken aback. "Umm…"
"Leave it to Kyle to think of that," my mother would continue. "He has such a good eye."
I should point out that my mother also had a very good eye. In her 50s, she worked as an interior designer and she would often hint to me — and by "hint," I mean tell me, unsolicited — that she thought Kyle was wasting his time working as a writer and should instead be a designer. And here, in front of her, decked out in festive yuletide genius, she finally had definitive proof.
"Kyle should market that," she advised. "I mean, I bet if you showed this to other people they would want to put a lit-up tree in their house as well!"
"Yes," I replied "It's a really good idea. You could call it...a 'Christmas Tree.'"
She shook her head, with a look of mild disappointment, as if to say, No. I'm sure we could come up with something better than that, Gavin.
For three weeks, my mother repeatedly tried to convince me to get Kyle to market his amazing invention. It was both distressing and hilarious. Yet in a strange way, it was also kind of wonderful. There is a lot that is terrible about Alzheimer's, no doubt. But for three weeks that Christmas, I got to see the joy on mom's face as she beheld a Christmas tree for the first time over and over again, and it never once lost its power to astonish.
It's a memory I cherish now that she's gone. So, if you happen to have a decorated tree in your living room this December, you can thank my husband.
After all, it was his idea.
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