OstrichUK Guest Blog

13 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by Ann Napoletan in Advocacy and Awareness, Blogging, Caregivers, Expectations, fear, Guilt and Regrets, Helpful Resources, Life After Caregiving, Mom, Ruminations, The Early Years

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Tags

alzheimers awareness, alzheimers story, caregiving, dementia, dementia aware communities, purple angel

A huge thank you to OstrichUK for inviting me to be a guest blogger on their site this past Friday. I truly appreciate the opportunity and love everything this company is doing to help #ENDALZ.

Did you know that earlier this year, the wonderful folks at Ostrich donated thousands of window stickers and information posters to Norman McNamara’s Purple Angel campaign? Their generosity is helping to create dementia aware communities all over the world!

Here’s a link to my guest blog, a bit on the journey from denial to acceptance and the lessons learned in between. I hope it will strike a chord with other caregivers and loved ones, so please feel free to share Life After Caregiving.

Happy Birthday, Mom…

12 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by Ann Napoletan in Books, Eason House, Life After Caregiving, Mom, Ruminations

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Tags

alzheimers, dementia

Writing - Long and Winding Stock Photos October 12. Mom’s birthday, and she would have been 77-years-old. The photo on the left was taken on her 75th.

Hopefully there will be one hell of a party in Heaven, complete with cake and a massive all-you-can-eat ice cream bar! It’s the first birthday she’s celebrated with her sister, Shirley, and Aunt Helen, in many, many years. Boy how she loves those two women! Just the thought of the three sitting around a table telling stories and sharing belly laughs makes me smile.

We’ve decided we’ll celebrate the day as well, because let’s face it Mom would slap us silly if she saw us sitting around crying. (And anyone who knew her knows I’m not kidding!)

Tonight, we’ll have a little cookout. For dessert there will be vanilla ice cream with her famous homemade chocolate syrup, and then we’ll sit around a fire and enjoy the October evening. Considering her love of ice cream and the fall season, I think she would approve.

scans017 I’m also submitting a piece of writing to the publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. By happenstance (or not), I ran across something just this week saying they’re accepting stories for their upcoming edition on Alzheimer’s and dementia. Ironically (or not), the deadline is Tuesday, so I saw it just in the nick of time. If it’s chosen for the book, what a perfect 77^th birthday gift for my Guardian Angel, don’t you think?

Missing Mom…

05 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by Ann Napoletan in Books, Giveaways, Grieving, Life After Caregiving, Mom, Ruminations

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Tags

alzheimers, dementia, grief, grieving

It made me happy to put two copies of Why Did Grandma Put Her Underwear in the Refrigerator, by Max Wallack & Carolyn Given, in the mail this evening. I hope my winners, Becky and Cyndy, enjoy their books. Thanks to Max for sending me a second copy for the giveaway!

I’ll be honest, I’m struggling a bit at the moment and I can’t entirely put my finger on it. I think some of it has to do with dissatisfaction/frustration in one particular area of my life, but it’s more than that.

I’ve been disenchanted, uninspired, and on the verge of (and in) tears all week. I owe articles and responses and reviews to people, and I just haven’t had the emotional or creative wherewithal to do any of it. Even the things that usually excite and inspire me are leaving me feeling flat right now.

Tomorrow is my birthday; next Saturday is my mom’s. The first without her. Although she really hadn’t been “here” for quite a long time, just being able to sit with her, see her smile, hold her hand – I realize now what a priceless gift that was… I would trade all of my worldly possessions for just five minutes with her, although I can’t imagine having to say goodbye again when that time came.

Sometimes I don’t think I’ve come that far at all in the almost 10 months since her passing. Right now, it feels so fresh; I feel as though I could cry enough tears to fill the ocean. I know she wouldn’t want me to be sad, so for her, I try… but it’s hard as hell sometimes. I #%!$ing hate Alzheimer’s with every fiber of my being…