Above: "Deconstructing Alzheimers" a mixed media collage by local artist Mizu Sugimura is part of a current exhibition at the Asia Pacific Cultural Center in Tacoma, WA. Copyright 2007 by Mizu Sugimura.
(This blog was originally published on Thursday, December 6, 2007 at a reader-generated site at The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA.)
In the summer of 2000, a few months after my mother's 75th birthday I became aware that she was dealing with possible memory loss issues. My husband and I received a call. Mom was having car trouble. Since we were already planning to visit her that day on the east side of Lake Washington where she used to live, could we look into it?
The way she told it, she was unable to get the car to start after taking it to a nearby store. She had done a little shopping, come out and tried to start the vehicle, but it wouldn't work So she had locked the vehicle and walked about a mile and a half to her home.
My spouse took our car up to the shopping center where Mom had left her vehicle. When he called back his voice was rather puzzled. He'd found the car. He used the spare keys she had given to enter the automobile, but when he did so, he discovered her keys were in the ignition. However minor, this was a jolting experience the first of many such incidents that subsequently signaled with increasing intensity that things were not the same in the heretofore busy and independent life of the matriarch of our family.
My mom was a careful and meticulous person, a former college-level reference librarian with a Masters Degree who until that time had led a full and active life after she was widowed five years earlier as the grandmother of two, managing her active stock portfolio, and participating in a full slate of activities including singing in a local senior choir, gardening, knitting and weekly shifts driving to and from Seattle-Tacoma Airport for almost twenty years as a volunteer member of Traveler's Aid.
Of course, raising a child of my own in the south part of King County I did not have the occasion to visit with her more than once or twice a month. She wasn't a phone person and I've blogged on this site before that my family is not particularly forthcoming on personal details. Everyone in my family,but especially Mom, has always prided themselves on their ability to take care of their own lives. I'd translate this automatic response as -smile, it's so nice of you to ask and now there's no need for you to inquire any further thank you very much. Nevertheless for me it was a wake-up call.
A few days later when I was visiting she called me to go down to her laundry room in the basement where she was standing in front of the dryer. At first she didn't want to say what ever it was she'd called me for. After a minute or two it came out that she didn't know how to start the clothes dryer which she has owned and operated for years. I was more distressed at the time that she did not register any alarm at not being able to recall how to operate the machinery. But she patently discouraged further questions after I showed her the dial and buttons.
Above: Inset of a collage by Mizu Sugimura. Sugimura began using collage to illustrate and share powerful stories from her family's history as residents of the US governments wartime internment camps during World War II for which words appeared to fail them.
My alarm about these goings-on was really ratcheted up after placing a call to my younger (three years) male sibling with whom I had unfortunately not been close for a good part of my life when I discovered regretfully he at that juncture was not able to respond with the same sense of urgency and concern that I felt events called for, and indeed he was not able to meet my expectations in that regard for almost a full year. Most of this is possibly due to the fact he's from the data-oriented side of the family and I'm from the artistic side. He's about facts and I'm unfortunately all about feelings. We made quite a team.
During this period I increased the frequency of my visits and calls while compiling notes and observations about her memory lapses. The deterioration I believed I saw that summer seemed to fade in intensity as weeks and months passed. In many respects she seemed like her "old-self" except for a series of unexplained problems with fainting spells on several family outings which necessitated calling for aid.
To cope with some of my own concerns I started to do some drawing. I had been successful in previous years working with art materials in breaking some new ground in interpersonal family communications using collage to elicit a more forthcoming response in discussing the World War II internment and surrounding issues with older members of my family a few years before.
Crayon drawings had also been good therapy for myself in working through some of my own personal issues in the past. While journaling is a good way to confront some of the feelings that bubble forth during periods of transition like dealing with memory loss of a parent, I feel pictures have value as well in getting closer at times to the more emotional aspects of grief and loss for persons who are not comfortable expressing their feelings in words. And for individuals such as myself whose relationship with words is more abstract, illustrations are somehow more personal.
Above: Sugimura tries to capture some of the feelings which came to surface during an incident with her elderly mother a few years ago at a local restaurant during a family outing which required the help of emergency medical personnel. Copyright 2007, Mizu Sugimura.
Crayon drawings morphed into collages in more recent years as I've applied some of the experience I had with World War II collages on the general mainstream society issue of aging, Alzheimers and other memory losses which are for many people a topic for which they are not particularly comfortable and one some do not voluntarily discuss. Nevertheless, as the population grows older and my own baby boomer generation along with it, such conversation sooner or later comes into the picture whether we desire to speak of it among ourselves or not.
This last observation is what has really fueled my interest in attempting to offer a place from where people may be interested to begin a dialogue about the whole kit and kaboodle. To that end, I have created a series of collages exploring the topic using an image of my own mother as a marker for everyman or woman who may be struggling with the changes wrought by a failing memory.
Above: This early collage modeled my mom after Britain's Queen Elizabeth, a view I entertained observing her apparent decision to keep a stiff upper lip and carry on as before after hearing the doctor's opinion she may have Alzheimer's. Picture copyright 2007 by Mizu Sugimura
Pictures in my series of collages exploring Alzheimers and memory loss have been shown in addition to the China exhibition organized by Tacoma's Asia Pacific Cultural Center, at the Western Washington State Fair in Puyallup last September, and at a booth promoting the Washington State Longterm Care Ombudsman Program at a state teacher's conference and at Federal Way City Hall during 2006.
My own personal reactions and observations via the images I have put together attempt to convey some of the wide variety of emotional turmoil that may come up in the lives of anyone who has a loved one, family friend, neighbor or colleague who must deal with the issue of someone they love facing the losses that build-up during this process as well as the progressively ongoing dialogue with our own mortality.
Above: Detail of collage by Mizu Sugimura, attempting to convey efforts of a layperson to understand memory loss as a disease using a model of a skin infection or rash. Copyright 2007 by Mizu Sugimura.
These initial attempts were encouraged by friends and colleagues, one of whom is a professional registered nurse who presently employed with a company providing home-care visits with the elderly. She let me know that a number of pieces spoke vividly to her. For myself, if anyone should find any of these pieces helpful in giving someone whose having trouble with the issue a place to start suggesting a place to start the time and effort put into the collages will be counted as most worthwhile.
Groups and organizations with a focus on Alzheimers or memory loss issues are encouraged to contact me via this website at The News Tribune. I would be delighted to have an opportunity to share some of my art collages or the stories behind with an interested audience. I would welcome comments from others about how they have coped with similiar painful and difficult mental health issues in their own families.
Above: In the detail of this collage, the results of a series of small strokes combined with physical deterioration due to osteoporsis has taken a toll on my mom's former presentation as a woman who was always busy doing things. Now she sits in her chair in her apartment for much of the day to conserve her energy. Most of the activities she enjoyed have been dropped long ago. I don't see her in the same light and have had to adjust my mental picture of who she is. Copyright 2007 by Mizu Sugimura.
Senior health issues, normal aging and memory loss are discussed at this popular website: http://seniorhealth.about.com/od/alzheimersdisease/a/age_memory.htm Those who wish to learn more about Alzheimers disease might start with a website maintained by the Alzheimers Association of Western and Central Washington at: http://www.alzwa.org/ Finally, a good article examining the relationship between stroke and memory loss can be obtained at : http://www.johnshopkinshealthalerts.com/alerts/hypertension_stroke/JohnsHopkinsHealthAlertsHypertensionStroke_916-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
Above: Left to right, Mizu Sugimura, collage artist and friend, Kathy Hewitt. Photo by Yaz Yambe, copyright 2007.
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