How My Mom’s Alzheimer’s Prepared Me for Life Without Her

Losing your mom to Alzheimer’s is a very unique experience.

You’ve already been living without her for a very long time and then when she dies, you have to learn how to actually live without her.

My mom didn’t prepare me for a life without her. She couldn’t have.

My mom didn’t make sure there would be people left to take care of me in her absence. She couldn’t have.

My mom didn’t leave me with any last words of wisdom. She couldn’t have.

That all sounds wonderful, beautiful, magical, but that’s just not my reality.

My mom was long gone before she was actually gone.

She couldn’t support me or give me advice. She couldn’t really be there for me through life’s ups and downs.

Many of the people my mom would have recruited to support me in her absence left my life long before she did or shortly after.

They are not around to hold my grief, to comfort me in my sadness, or to remind me of my mom’s life.

That’s the way it goes sometimes when someone has Alzheimer’s. People deal with it differently and sometimes, they just disappear.

But maybe my mom prepared me for life without her in a different way.

Her journey taught me to stand strong on my own. It taught me hope, gratitude, and resilience in a way no mother could possibly ever teach her child on her own.

I learned how to live without her mentally and emotionally before I ever had to learn to live without her physically.

And I know I will be far stronger and better coming out of it than I was going in.

So maybe, without knowing it or meaning to, my mom did prepare me for a life without her after all.