Hail to De Queen

Alzheimer's Disease is a thief. It steals the patient's health and the family's finances; it steals the future. It can also steal joy -- but only if you let it. Believe it or not, you can find joy and you can find humor. It's there if you look for it and take time to appreciate it.

Five years ago this month Mona and I took a trip to see her parents who lived in southwest Arkansas. We'd visited them several times previously but not for a while, and we wanted to make the trip before winter. It was a long drive -- more than 600 miles one way -- so we broke up the journey into two days there and two days back. It was good to spend the time together away from home but in many ways the trip was a tough one for her. She had lost all concept of time, she occasionally didn't remember why we were in the car or where we were going, and she didn't recognize any of the cities or landmarks along the way. 

The past several months had already been tough ones for us. In June I'd had to explain to her that she could no longer teach kindergarten -- and that broke her heart. A few weeks before this trip to Arkansas -- following a frightening episode on the road -- I had to ask her for her car keys. 

J R R Tolkien once wrote that it's not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit. Mona was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's in 2007, and since then I have never heard my wife complain, or ask why this happened to her, or feel sorry for herself. Not once. The only time I saw her cry was late one night soon after she was diagnosed; she told me she didn't want her condition to get so bad that she'd no longer be able to praise God. My wife is the strongest woman I've ever known.

We headed south across the boarder from Missouri into Arkansas that day and Mona was quiet for a long time. I let her know when we were getting closer to her parents' house but she didn't recognize any of the surroundings. "Are you sure we've been here before?" she'd say. "I don't remember any of this."

We were less than an hour away when we passed a road sign announcing that the small town of De Queen was ten miles ahead. Her mood suddenly brightened.

"OH!" she said. "I DO remember De Queen."

I was encouraged. "You do?"

"Yeah," she said. "She lives in De London."