The most surprising advice I’ve received: Look for the humor!

Among the flood of good wishes that came to us when we first made Evelyn’s Alzheimer’s public, one note stands out in my memory. This former college classmate who had seen Alzheimer’s in her own family, offered a typical list, including the prayer that we would find peace and strength and patience. And then she added one more: “I pray you will see the humor in your situation.”

Humor? Little did I realize then that along with tears we’d have more than one occasion to laugh because of the strange rearrangement of reality that Alzheimer’s brings.

Three examples come quickly to mind.

Inspiration?

Early on I was walking with Evelyn when I remembered a phrase whose source I couldn’t pin down. Evelyn has always known details from the Bible better than I, and I asked her, “Where do those words come from? Are they just in some song, or are they in the Bible?”

“I don’t know,” she responded immediately. “But if they’re not in the Bible, they should be!”

I’ll let some theologian evaluate that while I still smile every time I remember the conversation.

Edification?

The reason Evelyn could pull details from scripture quickly to mind is because she was always a consistent, faithful Bible reader. Lately, she regularly opens her Bible again. She has started at the beginning and is reading more or less straight through. And more often than not, she reads out loud, oblivious to whoever’s close by or within earshot. She reads Time magazine aloud, too, as well as The Wall Street Journal and Facebook posts.

My daughter sent me Philip Yancey’s recently published memoir for Father’s Day, and I’ve received a pretty thorough preview of it by hearing Evelyn read long passages from across the room, regardless of what I might be trying to read or write.

But her Bible reading can be disarming, especially passages from Exodus and Leviticus detailing laws for the ancient Jews’ worship. From the couch in the living room while I was preparing dinner in the kitchen one day, I heard, “Then take all the fat on the internal organs, the long lobe of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat on them, and burn them on the altar.” It was a recipe I’d never considered.

Perspiration?

I’d never lost Evelyn in a crowd, either, until the day we went to Keeneland racetrack in Lexington with a large group of friends. She used a restroom with doors on either end, but I didn’t realize it connected like a long hallway to the restaurant we had left five minutes earlier. So while I waited at one door, unbeknownst to me she went out the other. After 10 minutes, I sent a kind lady into the restroom to call for Evelyn, and she came back saying, “She’s not in there.”

The place was absolutely packed on one of the first warm Fridays in April. I elbowed my way through the chattering, drinking, laughing, betting crush, straining to discover my five-foot-tall wife among the crowd. I tried calling her phone, but she didn’t answer. I enlisted friends in the search, and they contacted security, and then I called Evelyn again, and she did answer.

“Where are you?” I asked. Her answer wasn’t clear.

“Stay right there,” I said. “I’ll come get you.”

She didn’t stay right there. When she’s lost, she always just keeps walking (it’s happened at Kroger a time or two). Finally I heard my name, and turned to see her following several steps behind me.

Now, here’s the funny part. Early in our 15 minutes of separation, she did think to try reaching me on her phone. But instead of calling me, she went to Facebook. But instead of sending me a message, she simply posted to her feed: “Where are you?”

I didn’t see it till later, along with replies from across the country. So far she’s received 65 answers. Samples:

“At a car show, Mt. Repose Kroger.”
“On the way to a memorial service for my son-in-law’s father.”
“A few minutes ago we were at Knott’s Berry Farm, but now we’re back home in Huntington Beach, CA.”
“Amman Jordan.”
“On my couch.”
“Sitting here wishing I was discussing some amazing literature in a class taught by the one and only, Mrs. Taylor!”

It just goes to show, almost anything will elicit a response on Facebook. And almost any day with an Alzheimer’s patient can bring a smile . . . if you just relax and wait for it.

“Laugh” by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash. Keeneland racetrack photo by jdeeringdavis via Wikimedia Commons