Family and Friends

Every day I chat on the internet with both people with dementia and with those that care for loved ones with dementia. We are, I think, a great help to one another. We share stories both happy and sad. We share ideas. We share losses and gains. We laugh and we cry........together. They are my friends and they are my family. We share a kinship that doesn't require us to have ever met face to face. They are from all over the world but our experiences with this insidious disease have bound us together like we have grown up together either as family or friends.

Today we talked about our other family and friends. Our 'real' families and the friends we have had in our lives before this disease stole so much from us. We talked about how they reacted to the diagnosis, how some of them are now gone from our lives. Is it because they are busy, because they can't take this diagnosis, because they don't know what to say, because we weren't that important to them in the first place? We may never know....but I do know that at first I missed them very much. I couldn't understand what had changed. Now I don't dwell on it much because I have found out who my 'real' friends are. They are the ones that call just to ask how Vince and I are doing, the ones that know when I'm having a bad day and truly understand, the ones that show me the way if I am lost, help me when I'm confused, allow me time to form my words, but can also finish my sentences when I just can't find the words. They are not ashamed to be out in public with me, even though they know that sometimes it is 'iffy' on how I will act at any given moment. They look out for me. They treat me just the same even if that means giving me a hard time. They laugh with me, cry with me, travel with me and love me just the way I am. Time or distance doesn't deter them from their mission to be a friend.

My family has been wonderful. I am blessed with a loving husband, a wonderful son and daughter-in-law, great step children and grandchildren that love to include grandma in games and secrets. I was told by one that I am not the typical grandma. I don't talk about unicorns and rainbows. She is 13 and just one of my wonderful grandchildren. She and I talk about life and boyfriends, and music, and all things silly. My brothers have been supportive and we talk more now than we did before this thing call Alzheimer's crept into our lives. So many with this disease have been abandoned by their families, left to cope with this one their own.

I am so lucky! Some people go through their lives thinking that so many people are their friends and that family will love them unconditionally. Not so. I was given the opportunity to weed out the ones that loved me for what I could do for them..... make their life easier at work, when I had more money, when I could drive them places, when I could help them when they were sick. Please don't get me wrong -- I will still do these things for my friends and family whenever I can. It is just that now I know who these people really are.

Thank you so much for being my friends and family. I love you.