This story comes to us from Nancy Aderante.  Thank you for your touching story of devotion, love and caring. 
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
I just want to say how wonderfully blessed it is for all who are caregivers. My husband is gone now, but I was his main caregiver for a time with Alzheimer's. He forgot how to walk and how to eat, had a feeding tube and was incontinent. I promised him he would never go into a nursing home and to the best of my ability I kept that promise with the exception of two days at the end when I stayed with him 24/7. It was hard but I loved him and wanted to take care of him and help him. I did have a hoyer lift and a chair so that I could get him out of bed, he had had one very bad bedsore which had to be debrided and he ended up having flap surgery. The grandchildren would come and although he didn't recognize them he would sing to them (he had been a squaredance caller) and tell them jokes which they remember very well. He couldn't remember them, but he could remember a whole squaredance tune. He left me in 2004 and I miss him every day; loved him so much and was sooo glad I could take care of him and among other things live up to my marriage vows I made before God.

This touching story comes to us from Mike Menster.  Thank you Mike for sharing, and bless your soul for the greatest gift that you gave to your parents.  If you believe in heaven, I would think they are watching over you right now, their faces brightened with big smiles.    
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother was in denial as was I to a point, but very quickly I realized that I had to take charge and make sure they were well cared for; I was the only one that could and would do it the right way. I'm divorced, no kids and at the time was 45 years old. I had to stop working all together because my Dad was over dosed on a very powerful anti-psychotic of which I never gave written or verbal consent. He went from the moderate stages of the disease to the end stages in 36 hours. Mom had her own memory disorders and she was totally unaware of what happened to Dad. I fought and fought to try and reverse what had been done to him with no luck whatsoever. The medical community, overall, DID NOT LIKE that I was well educated and well versed on this disease; they told me to go back to marketing and leave the medical issues to medical professionals. Dad passed away and then Mom followed him just 9 short months later. As a single man and a primary caregiver, my heart, my prayers and my thoughts go out to all who face the same or similiar situations. It is and was an honor, a priviledge and the most incredible experience to be there for them. As I have always stated, for all my life they were their for me, now it was my turn. Knowing what I do today and the life altering effects, the devastation, the loss of nearly everything in my life, I would do it all over again. There are very special memories, a special closeness to my folks that I will carry for the rest of my life. God's Blessing to all...........

This story comes to us from Maria Hennig.
I have been caring for my 88 year old mother for just over 6 years. She has vascular dementia. My father was starting to show sign of it as well. He passed away from natural causes about a 1 1/2 years ago.

I give Holy Communion to other shut ins who live at home or in nursing homes etc.

Someone had said Alzheimers/Dementia patients should not receive the sacrament anymore. (ED: what are these "someones" possibly thinking?? Amazing how distorted beliefs can become)

I was giving my Mom her pills one night. She though it was communion out of the blue she did the Sign of the Cross and said Amen.

Through the fog of this disease she still remembers the Gift of Life & the forgiveness of Sin. AMEN

(also from Maria)
I care for my mother who has severe Dementia. At midnight on New Years Eve! I kissed & hugged her and said HAPPY NEW YEAR! She hugged & kissed me back and said OKAY, now we can go to sleep. She has moments of awareness. These are the moments that make it all worthwhile. I Love my Mom!

This story comes to us from Cheryl Freeman, a lovely blonde lady and a super woman. 

"Just look at this wrinkledy skin," my 83 year old mother-in-law says. "I must be getting old." "That isn't old skin," I tell her. "It is just now getting comfortable." We have this same converstation several times a week. Sometimes we have it several times a day. Each time I issue my line she says, "I have had a wonderful life with lots of friends and lots of love." She does not remember how to take a bath or shower. She has forgotten how to work the microwave or even what a microwave is. She does not remember how to cook at all. She has forgotten names and relationships but she never forgets that she is loved and that she loved in return. She has been through rosy times and stormy times but she remembers only the rosy times. She is such an encourager telling the women in her life how beautiful they are and what pretty clothes they wear even though she does not remember their names from one day to the next. She tells the men how handsome they are and is known to still flirt with a few batting her eyes and tossing her hair around. I think of her as my wrinkled three year old, funny and sweet yet impetuous and at times a bit naughty. She was diagnosed with Alzheimers 4 years ago even though looking back we realize now that her problems began about 12 years ago. I often think that perhaps she would be in a different place mentally if we had had her assessed when we first saw the problems. We contributed much of her mental fog to grief over the loss of her husband of 50 years. As a caregiver I tried to bring her mental status back to par with books, movies, games and outings but nothing seemed to help the slow decline. She is now on 2 medications and seems to be on a plateau of sorts. She is continually hiding things which for me is very stressful since she seems to be very good at this game. Today she hid her shoes. Yes, all 8 pairs. Our house is not very big but the shoes were no where to be found and we were going to be late for a doctor's appointment. She is now sporting new shoes bought on the way to the doctor's office. The hidden ones will have to wait to be found until I can take time away from my job to look for them. Life is now, to say the least, interesting.

This story is mine.  :)  Last night, we (David and I) took mom and dad out to see the movie Secretariat.  I wasn't sure how mom was going to do in a dark movie theater but when I asked her if she would like to go out for a dinner and a movie, she seemed genuinely excited about a prospect of going out for the evening.  We were a bit apprehensive at first because mom's confusion increases when the sun goes down but we decided to give this outing a try.    
Well, lucky for us, last night was a success!  

The triumphant story of courage, a winning spirit of an amazing race horse and his owner, the willpower to face challenges head-on was the underlying theme that weaved in and out of the beautiful story behind the movie Secretariat.  Interestingly mom was so grossly engaged in the movie that when Secretariat lost one of the races, she squeezed my hand and uttered sighs of sadness.  However in one of the final scenes when Secretariat magnificently finished the race, mom once again squeezed my hand and whispered over and over "yes, that's the way to go."
On the drive back home, mom talked about how inspirational the movie was, and how memorable it was for her.  Her exact words?  "I will remember this movie for a long time.  It's a very memorable story."  

Well folks, I will keep you updated from time to time to let you know whether mom remembers Secretariat, and the feeling of victory and triumph she felt while watching this movie.