Can I Just Quit?

The Grief and Quiet Chaos of Alzheimer’s

It has been a sobering and exhausting couple of weeks. I drove with my two golden doodles halfway across the country, from Massachusetts to Michigan, to visit my elderly parents: Mom is 79 and Dad is 81. My oldest brother, Brian, had flown in from Berlin to spend two weeks with them; my mother has Alzheimer’s and has recently been accepted into hospice care. My middle brother, Ken, lives just three hours away from my parents, so we all decided to gather for an early Thanksgiving. After all, it may be the last for my mother.

While she still lives at home with my father, her doctor sent us a letter in September confirming her dementia had progressed to Alzheimer’s.

”Due to the progression of the disease, her life expectancy is less than one year.”

The news felt like a gut punch. 

My mother was always a force to be reckoned with. A beautiful, sassy woman who could talk to anyone for hours, even if she’d just met them. Growing up, I dreaded going to church, knowing we’d stay well past the service for coffee and donuts. Most families wrapped up in 30 minutes, but with my mom, we were always there for at least an hour, and always the last to leave.

Now, her eyes are empty. She still has her big smile, but these days it feels like a mask for pain and confusion. 

When I pulled my black GMC truck up to their house last week, nestled in its own private corner of 50 acres of former National Forest land, she was standing on the porch. I braced myself for her usual joyful, heartfelt “Hello! Oh my gosh, I’m so happy to see you!” But this time, she stayed on the porch, watching me pensively, almost with suspicion. My heart sank.

She doesn’t know who I am. My heart skips a beat, and not in the good way.

My father quickly comes out and bellows, 

“Hello, Chris!” Then he turns to my mother. “Do you recognize your own daughter?” he asks.

“Oh, yes, of course. Of course I do,” she says, looking at me with an uncertain smile.

But I know she doesn’t. There’s no hug, no familiar squeeze, no kiss on the cheek.

I know it, and it breaks my heart.

But I also know that she loves me. Even if, for a moment, she doesn’t remember who I am, she is warm to me, she trusts me.

She let me take her for a haircut this time. She was never one for frills—my mom was a horsewoman who loved the dirt, not the pampering. Yet she seemed to enjoy the fuss, even if it was just a Supercuts. Probably because she hadn’t showered in a week; my dad doesn’t remind her, and the hospice nurse had missed three visits that week.

I tried to save her from a terrible cut as she attempted small talk with the stylist. “Cut it up to here,” she said, touching her earlobe.

“Ok, and do you want it layered and shorter in the back?” the stylist asked.

“Oh my God, no,” I blurted out from across the salon.

The stylist, a 30-something with short brown hair and Harry Potter glasses, startled. I forced a smile. ‘Just a trim, please.’ My mother’s eyes met mine in the mirror, her expression unreadable.

“She won’t remember what she asked for,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Just a trim, please.”

“Yes, I don’t need anything fancy. I’ll be too busy riding my horses,” my mom told the stylist, her tone light and confident.

She hadn’t ridden in years. Dementia had made her fearful of the things she once loved. Now, only one horse remained—Matar, who wandered the pasture as though forlorn and searching for lost barn mates.

“I love horses!” the stylist said brightly. “What are your favorites?”

“Oh, I’m not picky,” my mom replied, furrowing her brow as though she’d forgotten why they were talking about horses at all. Years ago, she would have answered without hesitation: “Arabians.”

She shifted topics quickly, as if Alzheimer’s itself nudged her along. “I have the best dog,” she said, her voice lifting. “Her name is Penny.”

In the 25 minutes it took—walking in without an appointment, getting a shampoo, and finishing the cut—she had twelve different conversations with the same person. Each story came in fragments, as the 32-year-old stylist tried in vain to keep up. But she eventually landed on three topics my mom could stick with for a minute: horses, her dogs, and her family.

Upon returning home, Brian and I attempt to cling to normalcy.

”Scrabble?” I ask.

”Hell yeah,” he answers. 

I set up the Super Scrabble board. We ask Mom to play in an attempt to give her something to focus her mind on instead of picking up every piece of lint on the floor by hand.

“Sure,” she says without her usual enthusiasm. It used to be her favorite game, and she always beat us.

But now, a sadness hovered over the game as she asked the same questions and struggled to make real words.

“How many tiles do I take?”

“Seven.”

“Ok… do I look at them first?”

“No.”

“Where are the tiles?”

“Next to you, in the box top.” Every time, she looks to the wrong side. Interesting, is there a psychological reason for her always looking to the left instead of the right? I wonder.

“How many tiles do I take?”

“Seven, Mom.” My tone becomes sharp with impatience. 

“And is it my turn?”

“No, Mom.” Brian’s tone is the same.

Her tiles lay upside down or backwards. She had eight. She formed words that didn’t exist, her hands trembling slightly as she moved the pieces.

This is not my mom, I thought.

This is that other fucker, Alzheimer’s.

We all carry the weight of her decline in different ways—my father, my brothers, me—but we all feel it. 

The week went on, with Mom innocently creating chaos throughout the house. You couldn’t leave a drink unattended—she’d think it was hers and it would disappear. Or it would line up on the countertop with her four other glasses full of various liquids. “Is this mine?” She would repeatedly ask.

You couldn’t leave her in the kitchen; she’d start making a “meal” — mushrooms with onions, or black olives mixed with nuts—and forget to turn off the stove. She was desperate to be useful; the disease made it clear she found her value in caretaking.

My mom used to be an amazing cook. She was a talented seamstress. And she was funny and loving. She never drank soda. Now, she can’t follow a simple Rice a Roni recipe, her sewing machine is covered in dust, and she drinks Coca Cola.

Who is this person?

She wanders around the house, asking if anyone needs anything, but even if you answer, she’ll forget in a second and ask again. She forgets she just ate and eats again.

“Mom, you just had cheesecake.”

”I did?”

She is aware of her condition, poking fun at herself from time to time. But she also carries a heavy, unspoken grief. She spent a lifetime anticipating this may happen—Alzheimer’s had taken her mother and her grandmother before her. She had hoped, somehow, to be spared.

“Can I just quit?” she recently asked the visiting nurse.

“I’m sorry?” the nurse replied, confused.

“Quit. Can I just quit life now?” Mom repeated.

“Oh… I’m sorry, no. That’s, uh, that’s not how it works,” the nurse said nervously.

“Oh,” says Mom, her eyes dropping to the floor.

I looked away, unsure if I was angry at her question, at the disease, or at life itself.

“Oh.”

The silence in the room, heavy with our shared hatred of the unknown, was deafening.