My mom still laughs at her own jokes. Almost always the same joke because she's forgotten she told it thirty seconds ago. But the laugh is identical every time: a little too loud, eyes crinkling at the corners, completely unapologetic. That laugh was hers before the diagnosis. It's still hers now.
This Mother's Day feels significant. On May 22nd, it will have been one full year since my mom moved into long-term care. I'm writing this because Alzheimer's happens to whole families, not just the person living with it, and because somewhere out there, someone's in the middle of this exact journey, I want them to know they are not alone.
I'm also writing this because the caregivers who show up for our loved ones deserve to be named, loudly, as the heroes of this story.
The Day Our Family's World Quietly Shifted
There's no single moment. That's what nobody tells you.
It's the third time she's asked what day it is in an hour. The story she tells that you've heard word for word before, and you smile because she's so pleased to be telling it. The kettle in the wrong cupboard. Something behind her eyes that's a little dimmer, and you can't say when it started.
Alzheimer's doesn't announce itself. It arrives quietly, rearranges things, and by the time you understand what you're dealing with, it's already been living in your family for a while. The diagnosis, when it came, was both a relief and a weight. A relief because it had a name. A weight because of everything that name implies.
One Year. Long-Term Care. Easy Decisions.
May 22nd will be one year.
No one chooses long-term care because it's the easy option. Underneath the practical conversations around levels of care, staffing ratios, proximity to home is something much messier: guilt that you know isn't rational but arrives anyway, and a love so fierce it sometimes presents as fear.
And sometimes, families have no choice but to put loved ones in long-term care facilities. Because their loved ones wander out on their own, or do unsafe things when left alone. Mom wandered - twice. We took measures to make sure she wouldn't do it again. But at the end of the day, installing a double-sided lock on her front door felt inhumane (and plus, it wasn't actually safe due to fire and other safety hazards).
We chose it because we wanted our mom safe, and well cared for by people who truly know how to do this. A year in, the guilt has softened. Because I've watched what good care looks like — my mom settled and comfortable in a place that knows her routines, knows what makes her light up. That's not nothing. That is everything.
The visits are different now. We're not managing medications or tracking whether she ate or bathed. We can simply be with her — sit, hold her hand, laugh at the same jokes. It turns out that was always the most important thing we had to offer. We were just too tired to see it.
To Every Caregiver: You Are the Whole Story
I need to start with one person by name: Jackie.
Before mom moved into long-term care, she was living in a garden-level suite on my brother's property. She'd wanted this. Her own space, her independence, her own schedule. For a while, it worked. And then, gradually, it didn't. She was microwaving yogurt containers and not understanding why they melted. She'd go days without bathing because she hadn't been outside, so what was the point? She was lonely in the quiet, persistent way that settles in when someone spends too many hours alone.
We knew she needed a companion. We also had one non-negotiable: they had to speak Mandarin. My mom is most herself in her first language, and as her memory shifted, that became even more true. Finding someone wasn't easy - until my best friend connected us with a company specializing exactly in this: experienced Chinese care aides, fluent in Mandarin, with deep backgrounds in elder care.
That's how Jackie came into our lives.
Jackie is now with my mom five days a week, four hours a day, at the long-term care facility. She takes her on a walk every single day. She makes sure mom gets her exercise in, accompanies her to doctor and dentist appointments, and stays a little longer when mom needs settling. She does simple addition exercises with her, writing practice, reads books aloud - not because mom can always follow the story, but because the stimulation matters, and Jackie understands that.
Every time I visit and Jackie's there, my mom is livelier. Less grumpy. Happier to see us. That's not a coincidence.
I want to be transparent: a private companion is a privilege. Not every family can afford it, and I don't take that lightly. Jackie is living proof of what dedicated, consistent, present care does for someone living with Alzheimer's. She learned my mom's rhythms, her language, her stubbornness, her humour. She treats her with dignity on the easy days and on the hard ones.
The broader caregiving world - the care aids, nurses, recreation staff, dietary aides, pharmacists, doctors, dentists, and every person who shows up for someone else's beloved person - carries an emotional weight that wages in this industry almost never reflect. They learn the names and stories of people who may no longer be able to tell them. They absorb frustration and grief, and they come back the next shift and do it again.
To every caregiver: what you do matters. You matter. This world is better because of you.
Dementia Waits for No One
Dementia does not wait until you've had the conversation you keep meaning to have. It doesn't wait until you've booked the trip or found the right words. It moves on its own timeline, whether you're ready or not.
This isn't meant to frighten you. It's meant to move you.
If your mom, or a mother figuer is still here with you, still reachable — go. Call her. Tell her the things you've been saving for a better moment, because now is the better moment. If her memory's already changing, go anyway. Presence matters even when recognition is uncertain. Love lands even when the name attached to it is out of reach.
Go Hug Your Mom This Mother's Day
This Mother's Day, we'll visit my mom at her residence. We'll bring flowers because she has always loved flowers. We'll listen to her tell us the same story maybe three times, and we'll laugh like it's the first time every time, because that laugh is hers and we are not going to let it go.
It won't look like a Hallmark card - or maybe Hallmark will take this as a note and create a card just for this type of occasion. What it'll look like is a family that's been through something real, sitting together on a Sunday afternoon, grateful for exactly what we have, and all that we have coming.
So this is your nudge. Call mom. Visit mom. Stay a little longer than you planned. If she's living with memory loss, love her in the language she can receive. A hand on her hand. A familiar song. Your face, close to hers.
If this day is complicated - by loss, by distance, by estrangement - you are not excluded from this. Carry the love forward. Let it shape how you show up for the people who need you.
Dementia waits for no one. Neither should we.
Go hug your mom.
