Mother’s decline challenges author

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This article was published 04/01/2020 (2321 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Alzheimer’s disease and dementia have become fairly common topics in contemporary arts, with a variety of novels, memoirs and films that deal with these illnesses, which are affecting a growing number of people each year as our population ages.

Marion Agnew, an American who now lives in northwestern Ontario, tackles her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s in her memoir, Reverberations.

She details her struggle in coming to grips with the fact that her brilliant mother, Jeanne — a former mathematics professor — is finding her intellectual capacity gradually diminished. Agnew, her father and siblings are stunned by the implacable nature of the disease that can claim the mind of such an intelligent woman.

“In recent days, my mother has turned to me with childlike trust when she feels overwhelmed by all the strangers in her house, strangers who are her own grown children and her young grandchildren. Her guard is down; she is vulnerable. At last, she needs me.”

Jeanne’s family has owned property next to Lake Superior for decades; the generations have spent most summers there, with Agnew’s own family travelling north from Oklahoma each year. The large and small camps (cottages) are an essential constant for her family, so despite her mother’s growing confusion and anxiety, Agnew and her father decide to take Jeanne to the lake.

Agnew believes that being in a much-loved, familiar place amid nature’s beauty will help her mother relax and feel at peace. However, Agnew discovers that her mother is no longer able to remember all the summers she spent swimming and paddling in the lake, or the love she once felt for this vacation spot.

While Agnew finds it very difficult to reconcile her mother’s decreasing capacities, she’s also dismayed by the anger her father — a retired history teacher — shows toward her mother. “My father was angry: at the illness, at himself for not being able to cure her, at her for slipping away. He was angry at me for bearing witness to his short temper, for suggesting he comfort or indulge her when his inclination was to argue her ‘back to reality’ — a trip she could not make.”

After her mother dies, Agnew forges a new bond with her father. While growing up, she never felt very close to him; as an adult, she is able to learn more about his life and appreciate his company when they spend time at the lake.

“Our sadness drew us together. I developed a respect for Dad’s routines — even his index cards and ballpoint pens — as I watched them help him befriend grief and carry on for the seven years until his last illness.”

Her mother’s death also gives Agnew insight into her own struggling marriage, and she decides to end it. After doing so, she moves from Arizona first to Thunder Bay, then to the family cabins. In trying to figure out what work needs to be completed on the two buildings to keep them in use for her family, she falls in love with Roy, who owns the cabin located between her two family cabins. Now living at the lake year-round, she gains an appreciation for the changing seasons.

In sharing her family’s joys and sorrows, Agnew writes from her heart. Reverberations is a very personal look at how a daughter’s life is shaped by her parents, siblings and the world around them.

Andrea Geary is a reporter with Canstar Community News.