In loving memory of Aurora Villamiel Tierra-Cardenas (September 20, 1943 - April 10, 2006)
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Just how does one accept that her parent may already need to go?
This is dedicated to my mother.
‘I still want to live’
My mother, as an advanced-stage sufferer of dementia of the Alzheimer’s type, only cries for six known reasons - when she’s hungry, when she wants to see either me or my dad beside her, when she struggles to remove her diaper which she really hates, if she’s in physical pain, if she needs to respond to the call of nature, and if something has annoyed or irritated her.
One night however, I woke up to a very different cry. It was her fourth night in the hospital where she was rushed after being badly bruised from a fall. Thinking that it might be one of the six reasons, I checked on her underpads (we earlier decided to stop the usage of diapers), it was not wet. I peeked into her underwear, it was not soiled. I asked her if she’s hungry or in pain, she only continued crying with nary her usual nod or “no” for a response.
She then began calling for dad who was partly hidden from her sight. Since dad’s out of sleep and was not feeling well, I told her that dad and I were just there while caressing her arm. But she persisted in her crying so I just ignored it thinking it is ordinary for advanced-stage sufferers of her illness to act like that.
A minute into lying down on the makeshift bed I placed beside her bed, I suddenly heard her saying some words that were too garbled to understand. From experience, if she keeps on saying some words over and over again, I must really try to listen and guess what she’s trying to say. What I heard sent chills down my spine that I knew I had to wake dad up.
Restless in bed and saying the words “I still want to live” and pointing and looking at something, I recalled the story of our house help who said that prior to the hospital confinement, mom, who I know is not much of a believer of anything supernatural save for some creatures she often told me as the other creations of God, kept on insisting that she’s been seeing a lady in white in our kitchen which could be seen if the door to the master’s bedroom is open.
When mom eventually calmed down after 30 minutes or so, knowing she’s scared, I asked her permission so I could sleep beside her in her bed. Before sleeping, I told her some happy stories that made her laugh. Upon knowing her nerves had already calmed down, I asked her what she saw and for a response, what she gave evoked different images that could only make me cry:
“I saw a small star, a light.”
Aurora
Dictionaries define the word “aurora” as the Latin word for dawn. The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, describes it in detail as a glow observed in the night sky, usually in the polar zones which could either be known as the "aurora borealis" or the "northern lights” that often appears as a reddish glow on the northern horizon as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction, or the “aurora australis" of the southern horizon that also has similar properties.
Astronomically speaking, an “aurora” may first appear as a faint, milky glow low in the north, too dim for the human eye to detect any color but bright enough to silhouette clouds near the horizon. Astronomy.com described it as a “ghostly glow” which is a “feast for the eyes”
Similar to the effects these lights possess are the never-ending wonders my mother gave to me and to persons who have known her. Seemingly destined to be named after such phenomena, Aurora Villamiel Tierra-Cardenas was born on September 20, 1943 although apparently, a mistake occurred in the inputting of her birth date of which was the reason why on all of her important documents, she’s always a year younger than her actual age.
Her sisters describe her as the most beautiful of more or less a dozen siblings who all hail from Atimonan, Quezon. Stories speak of how both her innate and physical beauty always earns her the admiration of many people. At the risk of being over the edge what with my natural bias for her as her daughter, I believe such descriptions to be true. These descriptions, however, cannot compensate the very reasons why she always stands out in everything she does.
Career-wise, she once was a star. Many people recall her as the “Tiya Dely” of the Quezon province as for a time, she had a stint as a radio announcer (DJ) in one of the local radio stations and became famous, with a share of fans of her own, for her slow but soft, and low but sweet tone of voice that made people compare her with the famous radio personality.
Said event in her life was just one of the many instances that made her shine and glow like an aurora until dementia closed in on her lights and eventually swallowed these like one big and strong black hole.
More Cruel Than Cancer
It was only in 2004 when mom suffered a severe stroke when her doctors discovered that she could have probably been undergoing a series of mini-strokes beforehand that caused numerous minute ruptured veins and damaged cells in her brain. Such discovery had been previously unknown to us as every time mom would have a high blood pressure or any discomfort, she would not inform us of the physical pain she was feeling. No, she never did. She never wanted us to worry.
According to Reader’s Digest Guide to Medical Cures and Treatments, it is “a brain disorder in which memory, thought processes, and behavior become progressively impaired named for Dr. Alois Alzheimer, the German neurologist who first described it in the early 1900s.”
Dementia.com on the other hand provides that the word “dementia” is only a general term for a condition that results to different illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.
One could only imagine the pain that struck me and my dad upon learning only recently that from the abovementioned website that in the three stages of Alzheimer’s, mild or early stage, moderate or mid-stage and severe or late/advanced stage, mom is already in the latter stage.
Often dismissed as a natural occurrence due to old age, dementia could be much more cruel than cancer as it could only be slowed down, not treated. I am no medical expert but who’s to say it only happens to people in their 80s or 90s? My mom, my dear, sweet and loving mom is only 62 as of this writing!
Beyond Borders
Commitment means passion, dedication and the will to finish anything that has been started. As in the case of my mom and dad, it is love beyond affection, acceptance beyond caring.
It took me quite a while to really accept and understand that my mom has dementia. Sadly, now that I am beginning to see how I really love and accept mom for who she was, is and will be, that I’d even have my hand with a tissue placed at the very hole of her anus just so I could fully catch her excrements and fully have her cleaned three to four times during my shift in looking after her, mom is already at the last stage.
Two years of seeing how my dad, despite also being sick with hypertension and diabetes, managed to play his role very well as the man who stands by his wife “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health”; two years of my mom looking older than her actual age due to dementia; two years of seeing mom mentally and quite stubbornly battle her illness that rapidly eats her physical strength because “she still wants to live” for us; two years of me loving her but not really being able to show it until recently…
Now all I could do is stand by her and be strong as she is being strong for dad and me. All I could do is increase the faith, even go to the extent of asking Him fervently to postpone the “light” that is now fetching my mom who is the “light”, the Aurora of our family, of our home.
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