"The Almost Moon"- Another Bestseller That Incorporates Alzheimer's and Dementia

"The Almost Moon," by Alice Sebold, is a bestseller for good reason. Sebold is a fantastic writer who brings to life a riveting story about extreme family dysfunction. Since the big Alzheimer's moment is in the first paragraph, and this is an Alzheimer's site, I'll quote from the first paragraph:

"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it...She had been beautiful when my father met her and still capable of love...but by the time she gazed up at me that day, none of this mattered."

This story, told from the perspective of Helen, the daughter of two mentally ill parents, reveals, in the first line of the book, that she killed her mother. The first chapter does talk about dementia, to some degree. Her mother was 88 and dementia was taking hold. However, in my opinion, little of what the mother did, in her aged, demented state, was worse than what she did during the years prior to Alzheimer's. The cruel remarks from her mother's mouth didn't start with dementia. And the statement that dementia "reveals the core of the person affected by it" likely, in some instances is true, but many of us have witnessed in our loved ones total personality changes with the decent of dementia.

As the story develops, the reader finds out that the mother had always made cruel remarks to the daughter. The beautiful mother who had modeled slips for photographers constantly criticized her daughter's weight. She made her daughter, as a young girl, stand up to an angry crowd of men who came to see the mother. That the young Helen was slapped by a grown man, for her mother's behavior, and the mother chose to ignore this, was just one more incident in the horribly messy life of the child. This happened long before the dementia.

That Helen's father shot himself and young Helen was left to clean up the blood - well I could go on but I don't want to ruin it all. The point is, Helen had an intense love/hate relationship with her mother her entire life. The fact that her mother had developed Alzheimer's as she aged is practically a non-issue. Did the Alzheimer's push Helen over the edge? Perhaps. In a way love, not hate motivated her. And dementia was just a tiny, additional irritant. A lifetime of twisted connections congealed in that single moment and made Helen's murder of her mother seem a natural, almost compassionate act.

Nothing could have been more painful for Helen's sick, agoraphobic (she couldn't even leave the house without being shrouded by blankets) mother than to have to go to a communal nursing home. She wanted to die at home. Helen knew her mother was dying and Helen was planning on calling their hospice - at least that's what she told herself.

When her mother soils herself, and Helen starts to clean her up, she washes with water and sponges and uses the towels to dry - and then smother - her mother. It just happens. This mature woman was once a child who dreamed of cutting her mother up and putting her mother's severed pieces in boxes. Yet, she hated seeing her mother suffer the indignities of old age. This bowel accident just floated Helen right over the top and she ended her mother's life. She never is really sorry she did it. The story goes on to tell the background of Helen's life growing up, her marriage, her children, her desperation to escape from her mother. Her need to care for her mother. The book traces the hours after the murder and how it all is resolved. It's a great read.