Susie Jane Stringham Susie Jane Stringham

My mother passed away recently after suffering from the terrible effects of Alzheimer’s disease for over a decade. About three years ago, I wrote about my experience being with her as she one day suddenly and eloquently expressed her fears and pleaded for understanding. It became clear to me how important it is to listen to people with advanced dementia. We need to show understanding and acknowledgement for who they are, not just who they once were.

These are some of the words of hers that I quoted then:

“Corinne, I appreciate all of the help you give me.
I know nothing about nothing.
Don’t ask me about anything.
I feel so desperate. My mind is zero.
You will have to tell me what to do and what not to do.
I feel like I have lived 1,000 years.
You have to keep me on the right track and tell me what to do.
I don’t want to make mistakes.
What is allowable and what is not.
You may have to tell me how to get to the bathroom.
Don’t forget I’m here.”

I will never forget my mother, and will always cherish the times we spent together—even as heartbreaking as it was to watch her decline in recent years. The John A. Hartford Foundation understands how difficult it is, and has been working to improve the lives of people with dementia and their family caregivers. If you didn’t see it, read the special themed issue of Health Affairs, just released this week and which focuses on Alzheimer’s disease. Many of our grantees and scholars working in this field contributed to this important edition.

Our Hartford Change AGEnts Dementia Caregiving Network also had their first meeting this week. This network of several experts in the field will identify opportunities to improve the lives of older adults with dementia and their family and friend caregivers, and then work to make those changes a reality over the next two years.

In all of this work, it is critical that we keep the person with dementia at the center. Our cherished memories and images of our loved ones, both before and during their illness, should serve to motivate us to work as hard as we can to improve the lives of everyone affected by Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

I wanted to offer the memories and images of my own mother that I shared at her memorial and hope they inspire others in this work.

Memories of MyMother

My mother, Susie Jane Stringham, was born April 13, 1918, 96 years ago tomorrow, in the Ozarks, in a rural area outside the small town of Aurora, Missouri. She was the fourth child of May and Frank Moore, a homemaker and farmer. She came from humble beginnings. She was clearly the best looking among her four siblings (her children know she was truly beautiful). Immediately after graduating from high school, she left for California. Many times she told me that she left Missouri because she thought she would have a better life in California than she could have on the farm. On arriving, she moved in with an aunt and uncle, who had gone to California earlier from Missouri, and found a job as a waitress in a downtown Los Angeles F.W. Woolworth Company five and dime store.

When I think of my mother, I think of pictures and colors, because our mother painted pictures. She enjoyed oil painting and used bright colors. I have many memories of the pictures she painted, but I also have pictures of her in my own mind.

  1. The colors bright red and shiny brown are the first pictures in my mind. These colors are also in two of my mother’s favorite paintings—a watermelon slice and a covered rural bridge. They hung on the walls of her homes for decades. The picture I have of my mother is her as a little girl looking out over acres of brown plowed fields and the family’s garden in the Ozarks before spring planting. Another image is of mother harvesting the fruits of her hard work; she and her two sisters are sitting on the ground eating bright red strawberries and big pieces of watermelon.
  2. The next picture I have in my mind of my mother is from 70 years ago when she and I walked down Prairie Avenue in Inglewood, Calif., with my baby sister Carreen in the buggy. The picture is bright green, because we were walking on a heavily trafficked road with green trees all around. We were on our way to the local A&P grocery store in downtown Inglewood. I was four and held my mother’s hand and the buggy very tightly.
  3. Another picture I have of her is when I was 10 attending her marriage to Ralph Stringham. This image is yellow, because of the floor to ceiling yellow drapes that my mother had sewn from bed sheets for our new living room, the room where she and Ralph were married. She was a very good seamstress and made most of Carreen’s and my dresses when we were young.
  4. Multicolored pictures, with both bright and pastel colors, are the next memories I have of her. They are flowers. Whether it was Inglewood, Westchester, Playa del Rey, or Victorville, she loved having and taking care of flowers. Rarely did I enter our home without seeing a big bouquet of flowers from her garden.
  5. Another picture I have of my mother is blue. The color blue reminds me of all the wonderful times my sister and I had when we went to the beach with our parents, and years later viewing the ocean from our home in Playa del Rey with Ralph, Sue, and our brothers, Russell and Ronald. Blue also reminds me of times that were not so good, when Ralph fell from his bicycle and hurt himself badly at the beach when a dog ran into him while he was pedaling on the path. My mother painted several beautiful oils of beach scenes, one of which is now hanging in my New York City apartment.
  6. My mother never painted people in her pictures, but if she had it would have been a self portrait of her holding her first great grandchild, Lauren. Alyssa brought Lauren as a tiny baby to mother’s home in Victorville. My mother was frail and was afraid to hold her standing up, so she sat down and we put Lauren in her lap. I will never forget the wonderment and love in our mother’s eyes looking at a helpless infant, while she herself was also growing helpless.
  7. Finally, the colors silver and grey remind me of what my mother, who had been such a vibrant, loving, and independent woman, had become in the last years of her life. For nearly 20 years she provided care to my father, who, before his death, struggled with normal pressure hydrocephalus and macular degeneration. However, by 92 years of age, she had become frail and suffered from advanced dementia. Each challenging new decline—losing her memory, needing help to shop, bathe, and manage money; and then requiring assistance just to dress and eat—left her feeling diminished, depressed, fearful, and incompetent. It was heartbreaking for all of us to watch her decline to a point when she could barely speak and knew none of us.

Mother, we will never forget you. You will always be in our hearts and minds.