Dementia Friendly City!

Proem

I’m worried that I’ll never be able to hug my kids and my grandkids ever again. I’m a toucher and a hugger. When I saw my old friend, Jerry, several months ago, he kept touching me. ‘We’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we?’ ‘Yes, Jerry, 51 years. It’s a long time, isn’t it?’ Over and over, maybe 51 times in two hours. I loved every touch. I love every hug. Sigh…

I first introduced my finance to my other mother, Eleanor, in Highland Park, Illinois, where I had grown up. Eleanor was mom to my best friend, John. We’ve been friends since we were in third grade. I noticed something was wrong, really wrong. While visiting, Eleanor kept repeating the same line and asking the same question over and over. She put her keys in the fridge — early-onset Alzheimer’s. In nursing school, I took care of several people with dementia. I listened to family stories about going out to dinner, to the grocery store, and the doctors’ offices with their family member with dementia. Sometimes the stories were slapstick humorous and always tragic. You might have heard my November 10th podcast episode, Caring for Parents. It’s Their Life. Open the Door about my Keeney friends, Jerry, Jenni, and Becky. Jerry lives in a Memory Unit in Colorado. My friend Tania Marien, a fellow podcaster who creates Talaterra, told me that her home, Riverside, California, is a Dementia-Friendly City…