English's Jenny Adams Pens Heartfelt Essay on Alzheimer’s, Her Dad, and Her

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Jenny Adams, professor of English, recently published a personal essay in the Greenfield Recorder on "My Turn: Alzheimer’s, my dad, and me," in honor of World Alzheimer's Day on Sept. 21. 

Read an excerpt below: 

I looked for it under a tree. But in the end, I found it near the bushes lining the edge of his condominium yard. I wish I could say that it was hidden. It was not. It stood out, a solid brown mass of poop in plain sight.

Unlike my dad’s very visible accident, the disease that caused it is stealthy. Alzheimer’s is like Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief,” who grabs diamonds from an upstairs bedroom and noiselessly carries them across a city’s rooftops.

The first signs — lost keys, lost wallet, confusions about dates — are imperceptible. Can’t remember a name? Forgot that you already bought peanut butter last time you went shopping? Confused about the day of the week? Sure, these could be early signs of dementia. Or they could just be life.

Grown children often fail to recognize signs of dementia in their aging parents, who loom in our memories as all-powerful Olympians. When I was little, my dad amazed me with what he could do. He could cook a French dinner! He could ride a bicycle with enviable ease! He knew all the lyrics to the musical “Oklahoma!” How could this same person, a man who could parse a Law Review article in one minute and reel off Joe Montana’s touchdown completion stats the next, poop under a tree and not fully remember it?

You might think that this moment would produce an epiphany. Like I would look at this drying lump and think to myself, “Oh yeah, my dad has Alzheimer’s!” This did not happen. But epiphanies about Alzheimer’s don’t often happen. Like the disease itself, understanding and then acceptance of Alzheimer’s come slowly, less like a light bulb and more like a slow tide on Nauset Beach making its way in.

What does it mean to understand Alzheimer’s? My limited grasp started only when my dad lost so much of his memory that even I could not fail to notice. Shortly after the incident, my dad mentioned how much he was enjoying his visit to Massachusetts. I laughed. “Quite a long “visit, eh?” He seemed confused, so I reminded him that he moved to Northampton back in 2018.

He looked stunned. Then he started to cry. This was the closest I came to any sudden realization. As I watched my dad, I finally realized that in his mind, he was out to see me and my family for a quick visit. A few weeks later, he once again talked about his visit “out East.” Then called me “Joan,” his sister’s name. And then a few more weeks later, he asked, “Joan, are our parents still alive?”

All of this sent me scurrying to various websites — Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation. The more I read, I learned that Alzheimer’s is a disease, not an intrinsic part of aging. Most older people — my 83-year-old uncle, my friend’s 89-year-old father, roughly half of the U.S. Senate — might have some memory loss, but not Alzheimer’s.

I also began to understand its symptoms and trajectory. Researchers stage Alzheimer’s in different ways: early/middle/late, or mild/moderate/severe, or Stage 1 to Stage 7. All list specific behaviors to help caregivers wrap their heads around what they’re seeing. Confusion about paying bills? That shows up in the middle. Difficulty with dressing? That appears much later. Loss of language comes at the very end. Learning these stages let me map where my dad had been and where he is headed.

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