A couple of weeks ago, my dad had an appointment with a funeral home director. I remember him mentioning something in passing, but I didn’t realize he had already scheduled it or when it was happening. At the time, it never crossed my mind to ask him to wait until I came home so I could go with him.
I didn’t find out about the appointment until after it had already happened, and when I did, it absolutely broke my heart. The thought of him sitting there alone, having that conversation by himself, crushed me. It upset me deeply that I couldn’t be there to support him. He may have preferred to go on his own, but still, I felt like I should have been beside him.
While I was home visiting this week, my dad had some paperwork from the funeral home that he wanted me to review. Even though we had talked about it briefly on the phone, he wanted me to see everything for myself. He left the packet on the table and gently asked me to look through it when I had a chance.
I kept putting it off. I didn’t want to take time away from being with my mom just to read brochures and forms. Still, I knew I owed it to my dad to go through it eventually, no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel.
On my last day at home, my mom’s aide was making her something to eat. I made myself a sandwich, picked up the packet my dad had left out, and carried everything to the kitchen table. I sat down, took a breath, and opened it.
Do you know what it feels like to look through a catalog of caskets and urns while the person you love is eating lunch in the other room?
I do.
It feels like a betrayal.
It feels like I’m giving up on her, like I’m finally admitting to myself that there’s nothing more I can do.
It feels like I’m going behind her back, quietly planning her death and her funeral while she has no idea any of this is happening.
It feels like a lie.
It feels like I’m lying every time I tell her she’s okay, that she’s safe, that nothing bad is going to happen to her.
It feels like I’m carrying this enormous secret—one that everyone else seems to know, while she remains completely unaware.
There were several moments this week when my mom said something about death, dying, funerals, or bodies. One time, she looked at me and said, “He’s just going to throw my body in the water.”
Does she know something?
Or is this just part of her usual stream of thoughts—words that don’t quite make sense or connect to reality anymore?
It’s impossible to know, but it breaks my heart all the same.
That’s the reality of this Alzheimer’s journey. You try over and over to make the right choices, to do what’s best, even when it’s unbearably hard. And still, you constantly wonder if you’re failing the person you love. You question whether you’re letting them down. You wonder if they understand more than they can express.
It hurts. You feel heavy, broken, and exhausted in a way that no one can truly understand—and yet, you keep going.
You do the hard things. You make the impossible decisions. Because you know you’re all they have.
Your love carries you forward when you feel like you can’t take another step. Your love gives you the strength to sit at the kitchen table, choosing caskets and urns and funeral arrangements, while your loved one eats lunch just a few rooms away.
It’s hard.
It’s hard.
It’s so incredibly hard.
But it’s love.
And everything you do, you do out of love.
