The Long Goodbye

By Cathy D. Giomblanco

The title of The Long Good-Bye is just that. This is the story of a wonderful life that was cut short too soon, not in the physical sense but in the mind. A story of a gifted artist who began the slow decline into Alzheimer’s dementia, eventually forgetting who she was and who her loved ones were. This is also a story of the ones who loved her and how they dealt with the progression of her long goodbye. This is the story of a life well lived. This is the story of my mom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638148630

Book preview

Chapter 1

Year One

One Sunday afternoon, out of the blue, on Mom’s sixty-eighth birthday in August, she called and asked me, Is it normal to forget people’s names?

I said, Of course, it is. When I go back up to Ohio to visit, I see people who were great friends in high school and I cannot remember their names.

She replied, These are people I have known thirty years, and I cannot recall their names at church when I see them.

Even though I heard the desperation in her voice, I pooh-poohed the thought and told her that it is totally normal.

I walk into a room and forget what I went in for all the time. You are fine, I reassured her.

A week later I called her in Ohio from my home in Texas for our regular weekly phone call. She sounded great. We had a good conversation. She made me promise I would never put her in a nursing home. I said I would not, and I believed what I was promising. I know that if I would put her in one, she would end up like my precious grandma. It is so sad to even think about her ending. Plus, I need to tell Mom to stop dwelling on it. I love her. I will never do that to her.

Please, dear God, keep Mom happy, healthy, and living well into her hundreds. Please ease her mind of worry about her old age. I am so grateful for my life, my mom, and family, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Little did I know at the time that the old age would come much sooner than I had expected.

In October, I read a disturbing article on Alzheimer’s disease. It was for a paper I had to complete for a college class I was taking. I hope and pray none of my loved ones or myself ever get Alzheimer’s disease. I need to stay positive in my life. The article was based on a study done on nuns in a convent. All the nuns were assessed for Alzheimer’s disease. Only some of them had the outward symptoms of Alzheimer’s dementia. After their deaths, all of their brains were autopsied. Some of those who had no symptoms of the disease outwardly had amyloid plaque (a symptom of Alzheimer’s) on their brains. The outcome of the study stated that a positive attitude was the one factor the nuns who had the plaque but did not show symptoms all had in common. Mom has a positive attitude.

Please, God, save her.

I am grateful for my mom and dad, even though Dad has been gone for ten years now. I pray to God to heal my mom and keep her safe and healthy. Please, it has only been ten years since Dad passed away from cancer. It is too soon to give Mom a similar long, drawn-out, suffering fate.

Through the holidays, everything runs along smoothly. We talk no more about it.

Year Two

It is now mid-March. Today on my weekly call to Mom, she said, "Harry Potter is a good movie. Have you seen it? And then a minute later, she repeated Harry Potter is a good movie. Have you seen it?’ That scared me. I had already answered her the first time. I repeated what I said before, Yes, Mom, I think I have it memorized. The kids have watched it so much. She did not even remember telling me moments before. I am alarmed by this but still brush it off as an isolated incident.

That night I prayed, Dear God, please heal my mom, and please do not let her have Alzheimer’s or dementia. Please, dear God, keep her healthy and safe all through her life, and may it be long.

The time flies by. I continue my weekly phone calls to Mom, so grateful that she is showing no more outward signs of Alzheimer’s when I talk with her on the phone.

It is now March twenty-first. I talked to my older brother today about Mom.

He said, She is fine. She is not as bad as you think.

I guess I will see when I go up this summer for my annual visit. I am praying for her.

Please, God, heal Mom’s mind.

My life continues…

Let me fill you in on who I am. I have three children, two girls and a boy. The youngest is only three years old, the oldest is eighteen, and the middle one is ten. My hands are full with the eighteen-year-old graduating high school in two months, a husband that travels all the time for work, and a full life with all the ups and downs of raising children. Plus, we are remodeling the downstairs of our house. I am also taking college courses to get out of the house two nights a week. I have three siblings: an older sister, an older brother, and a younger brother. We are each separated by less than two years to the nearest sibling. My sister lives in Pittsburg, my older brother in Florida, and my younger brother next door to Mom in Ohio. Even though we live far away from each other, we are a very close-knit family and talk openly among ourselves. Mom is always on my mind. I now live in Austin, Texas, but southern Ohio is where my childhood home is. Many of my extended family members still live there.

It is now May. I could not get a hold of Mom today. I am worried. Later, I finally get a hold of my younger brother, who lives next door to her. He says he talked to her and she is all right. I always worry about her when she is nowhere to be found by phone. She only has a landline and cannot learn the technology of a cell phone. Oh, how I wish we lived closer to one another so we could visit in person more often. It is just too hard to gauge things on a weekly phone call when you are over a thousand miles away.

May flies by, and it is now Memorial Day. I spoke with Mom. It has been over two weeks since I could not find her, and she is in a happy mood and sounds good. She says she is going to the graveyard to place roses on Dad’s, Grandma’s, and Granny’s graves. Mom is such a good person. My mind is at ease, and I am relieved.

I feel guilty because I know the brunt of taking care of Mom falls on my older sister’s shoulders because she lives closer than I do. She is three hours away, and I am twenty-one hours away. She goes to Marietta, Ohio, often to visit her two children and Mom. I will be there soon to visit though and gauge for myself how Mom is doing. I go up every summer and stay for at least four weeks to give everyone a break but mostly to visit Mom and the extended family. Mom still lives in the home I grew up in. It is nestled in a country in the Ohio valley on thirty acres. It is a wonderful place to go in the summers. My children enjoy the freedom. It allows them to wander the hillsides without restrictions. Mom always has a garden full of fresh produce to eat, and her well-tended flower gardens are a pleasure to see.

Time flies. It is now July. I am in West Virginia. I stopped on the way to Ohio to see Mom at my older brother’s house. It is so pretty here. My brother and his wife have a beautiful home. They just recently got transferred to West Virginia from Florida. Now, my brother is only two hours away from Mom. That eases my mind a little. I am heading to Mom’s in Ohio on Sunday. It will be nice to be in my childhood home. Home is always there. It is the house where I grew up. The land holds a piece of my heart. The kids and I enjoy our visit with my brother and his boys. We do not talk of Mom and her memory missteps. We really enjoy our family time together, watching the cousins ride minibikes and play basketball, the little ones look for frogs in the creek that runs through my brother’s property. After a few days, we say our goodbyes and head to Mom’s.

Mom and I are having a great time now that I am here to visit. We went antiquing in Marietta. I visited her art gallery where her artwork is displayed, and we enjoy canning vegetables together. She is still cooking and cleaning and enjoying her garden. CJ, my three-year-old, enjoyed her garden also. He ate almost every cucumber that came out of the garden, and there were a lot. He would eat five or six at a time. I canned tomatoes to take home, and Mom canned some pickles for me to take home also. The garden is bountiful this year. It warms my heart to look out the back screen door seeing Mom and CJ in the kitchen garden with their heads together, enjoying themselves immensely. She is teaching him how to garden, and CJ just loves being with his grandma. He also loves all things fresh and green. We will enjoy two more weeks with Mom and then must head back to Texas. School will be starting in less than a month.

It is now August, and we are back in Texas. I am worried about Mom. I called her tonight, and she sounded so weak and frail. She probably should not be alone. Poor Mom, I wish I lived nearby and I would go spend the night just to check on her. She said she was dizzy, so dizzy. She had to leave her car at church because of the dizziness. My aunt and uncle had to drive her home. I am going to call Mom again in the morning to make sure she is all right. I spoke with my sister, and she said Mom was upset because no one calls her anymore. I think she is lonely. What can I do? I am so very far away. (I do not realize at the time that we are all calling her as often as we ever did, but she does not remember the phone conversations or calls.)

While all this is going on, we are trying to get my younger brother a house. He is disabled from a childhood injury and has not been able to work since Dad got sick and closed his business. He and his two daughters live next door to Mom in an old decrepit trailer. In order to get this home through the USDA program, we must have Mom deed him an acre of land. She refuses to do so at first for whatever reason. During this entire process, we do not understand why she will not deed Brett the land. Not only that but Mom needs a new roof on her house, and none of us have the time to help her find contractors to do the job. We leave it up to her. All this makes me glad I live in Texas, thirteen hundred miles away. All of us fail to recognize the decline that is happening with Mom. She does eventually get some roofers there to look at the roof and pays them cash up front for a new roof, but they do not return her calls for four months.

Mom is also my younger brother’s sole source of transportation. He has never been able to drive himself because of the nature of his disabilities. He lets me know that so far her driving is all right. I put him in charge of keeping an eye on her driving since he rides with her on a weekly basis.

I got my haircut tonight. I looked at myself under the fluorescent lights, and I look so much older than I am. All this stress is wearing on me. Meanwhile, life goes on with soccer games with my daughter, play dates for my young son, and the college search for my oldest daughter—all this and keeping a close watch on Mom from a distance.

The fall has arrived. It is September twentieth. I spoke with Mom today. She was all excited because ABC news was in the small town of Marietta, covering the record flood, twenty feet above flood stage. The worst since 1964, or was it 1967, anyway it was a long time ago. Mom’s art gallery was flooded again. Fortunately, they had a warning and removed all the artwork before the water got too high. Mom said, I have never seen so much mud. She was in a good mood, so happy to have something exciting to share and also the camaraderie from all her friends and coworkers cleaning up the gallery. She is a good person. Mom’s roofer, whom she paid eleven thousand dollars in advance, is not returning her calls, again. Oh, things like that worry me so. Finally, my older brother gets involved and contacts the roofing company, and they promise to show up and put a new roof on her house.

Dear God, please bless my younger brother, Brett, and Mom and let everything work out for the best. Thy will be done.

It is September twenty-third. Thank You, God, for answering my prayer. Mom agreed to deed my younger brother and his two girls an acre of land so his new house is moving along. Thank You so much. I am so grateful.

Mom has asked the art gallery, which is a co-op ownership, if she can put her artwork and other creative items on consignment instead of working in the gallery. The other members refused her. She later confided in me that the other members brought mistakes she had made while tallying up bills to her attention. She could not even remember making the mistakes. When they were pointed out, she was devastated and does not even remember doing it. She is too embarrassed to work there anymore. Mom’s heart is broken. She is one of the founding members of the gallery, and they told her no to keeping her artwork there on consignment. It bothers me so much that they would say no to her.

Please ease her mind of any worry. Please, dear God, do not let her ever get Alzheimer’s or dementia. Please, I beg You, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Little did I know the disease was already getting a stronghold on her mind. I believe in miracles and know that if it is God’s will she can be healed.

It is October twenty-fourth. Today is my son’s fourth birthday. I had a party for him. Time is flying by. My prayer for the night: Dear God, please, as Mom ages, do not let her memory go bad. Please restore it and guide her in living her life to the fullest. Please do not ever let her get dementia or Alzheimer’s ever, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Love is most important. If one is loved, they can accomplish great things. I love God and my mom.

It is now November. I spoke with Mom today. She got her roof put on, and she is relieved, and so am I. It was really leaking in some spots. There are only two more weeks until Thanksgiving. My Thanksgivings growing up were wonderful. Mom always had it at her and Dad’s house. We were all so welcome. This year, Mom is having it at her house again. I wish I could be there. We are in the middle of buying a new house here in Texas, and I am going to have to limit our trips even in the summer because of the money involved. I will only take trips to Mom’s and family for a couple of years, no beach holidays.

It is December eighteenth, and it is my birthday today. As I get older, I am beginning to look back over my life. A lot of the things over my life were happy and sad. Some are so sad you wonder how you made it through, but here I am. My motto for today is Grasp the day each morning, embrace it, and breathe it in. Life is short.

Chapter 2

Year Three

It is a new year, and I am worried about Mom. She sounded so weak when I called her today. She is not herself. My sister said Mom is getting really forgetful also. Mom did sound weird. I wish I could go there more often, but with kids in school and a preschooler, it is not possible. I called my sister to check up on Mom; and I called my younger brother, who lives just down the road from her, and asked him to walk up and see how she is doing. I hope and pray she did not have a mini stroke or anything.

Please, God keep my mom safe and healthy. Please do not let her lose her thinking, coping, or independence. Please let her live a long, happy, healthy life. And most of all, please keep her in her right mind, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

I am in the process of looking for a new house to buy here in Texas. It consumes a lot of my time. Life definitely goes on, no matter what is going on with Mom in Ohio.

And So It Begins

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. That was always her worst fear. She is devastated. I am too. Her cousin is her doctor, and she went by herself to the appointment and asked him for a diagnosis of what was happening to her. It breaks my heart that she had to hear the news on her own, all alone. The thought of her driving the thirteen miles home from his office all alone with such a horrible, dreaded thing, basically a death sentence, told to her. My heart is breaking for her. I told my husband I want to move East to be within a day’s drive of her. The answer I got when I asked God to let me know what we should do about staying here in Texas was that we should move East. I am going up to Ohio in June to help Mom get the house cleaned. That is only six weeks away. Mom was put on the drug Aricept. I pray it works and exceeds our expectations. I am going to start visiting there at least three times a year. I will just have to do what I can. I cannot lose another parent, not yet. Mom deserves to live a long life. She deserves to have a healthy life with all her mental function. I am so very, very sad. God help us all.

I looked up the drug Aricept to see what the side effects and outcome of taking this powerful medication are. This is what I found. The drug only works in some patients. It is not a cure. It can improve cognitive function at first, and then after a few years, a steady decline in function occurs. We are looking at a five- to seven-year window if we are one of the fortunate few.

Please help my mom. Please cure her of her Alzheimer’s. I know You can, God! Please, please cure her. Make her whole again. Only You can. Only You, God!

The weeks go by since Mom’s diagnosis, and I feel as if I am going to scream with all the stress I am under. Mom being sick is really getting to me. She is really getting forgetful. My heart is breaking, just absolutely breaking.

Please, God, help her, in Jesus’s name, Amen.

I don’t even want to ask myself, but I must. Why is there so much death and dying in my life? Grandma was a relief. She was suffering in a nursing home, curled up in a fetal position, just waiting to die. She needed to leave this life to be with all the other people who love her. Dad suffered with cancer for almost three years, then went way too early. He was only sixty years old. He was too young to die. Now it is Mom. This time I am brought to my knees. I do not know if I can ever fully rise again.

God, help me, please? Dear God, please let there be a miracle for Mom. Please, I beg of You, please cure her. I know You alone can do it. I know You can. I believe You can. I pray in Jesus’s name, Amen.

My four-year-old called me Maddy because I am mad all the time. I took a hard look at myself. He is right. I am so stressed that it is making me ill. I did finish my college class, so things may calm down a bit.

It is now May. I am still unable to talk about Mom with anyone. I cannot call anyone to talk about it. I feel that if I say the diagnosis out loud, it will make it so. It is breaking my heart. I know all this is a part of life. I still am having a hard time dealing with it. My poor mom, this was always her worst nightmare. This is the fate my mom was so afraid of in her latter years. I prayed so hard that she would not end up with this horrible fate. Were all my prayers for naught? God can heal her. I know He can. But will He? Is it His will?

My husband and I went out Saturday night. I really did not feel well. I had a migraine Wednesday and Thursday. I have not been eating right, and I had a feeling of nervousness. Saturday, I was even shaky. I am so tired too.