As with lots of Alzheimer's patients, the list of things they are able to relish gets smaller and smaller as the disease progresses. Top that off with the dying palate that is so common among older adults. Sweet is usually the last thing they can taste with any pleasure. Together, that means mom gets ice cream every day...and in case my kids are reading this...your mom would like to have ice cream every day once she's 87!!!
Mom is losing her words. At first it was just memories, names, the ability to learn new things. But now she is losing her history and simple words. But she still longs to communicate. So she does it with sound. Sadly, most of her sounds are to express difficulty or pain or frustration (she has NOT forgotten how to say "Damn!")
But when it's time to have "a little dish of ice cream", mom finds her happy sounds. Those happy sounds don't come out as often as we'd like, so when they do - it makes the whole family smile right along with mom. It's become something we look forward to.
Ask mom if she'd like some ice cream and her face beams with delight (and I think, some understanding). That always gets the sound of a gentle hand clasp and a "Oh yes, I'd love some!" The sound reminds me of a cross between Oliver and Anne of Green Gables at her first tea.
Bring her the ice cream (which she has forgotten is coming) and she sits as straight as her osteoporosis will let her sit and readies her lap and hands for the dish and she says "Well, aren't you nice?!" And then a little piece of my mother comes back and she says "Thank You". It never fails to bring out the best in my kids when she is kind. (I always have them deliver the ice cream - she doesn't know them and has never been too fond of children, so I set them up to be these little ice cream delivering angels!)
And then you really get to hear happiness. It cracks me up! She eats her ice cream with pure abandon. She's like one of those crazy European chefs or food critics you see on TV who talk with their hands and express with sighs and moans and "mmmmmmmmmm's". She "ohhh's" and "yummmm's" and licks the spoon and rolls her eyes back in her head and clinks the bottom of the dish to get the very last drop. She puts the dish in both her hands and lifts it to her mouth to drink every last bit of sweet coffee ice cream out of that bowl.
Then she peers into the bottom of the empty dish, and I mean REALLY peers! until she decides it's going to stay empty and she sets it on her lap and folds her hands. Then she forgets that she had ice cream, so that when we come to take the dish and say "are you all finished with your ice cream?" we get to hear her say "Ice Cream? I would love some Ice Cream...do we have any?" and we get to get her just a little bit more.
Sometimes we get to hear happy when Ellen is on or Sophie is laying beside mom. Sometimes I get to hear happy when she has buttoned her blouse correctly and I am there to praise her. Sometimes we get to hear happy when she has had a good day doing her exercises or matching games. Unfortunately, it's becoming less frequent.
But at our house, Happiness always sounds like ice cream! What about you? Are you ice cream lovers? What's your favorite flavor? (Mine is currently Blue Bell Pecan Pralines and Cream)
It's the little things.....
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