So my Aunt Fern arrived and it seemed everything was as it should be. I was so happy to deliver on the promise . . . “We want to be together.” But that wasn’t the reality.
In a household of a mother with dementia, a brother plagued by alcoholism, an incessant barking dog and an aunt with dementia and out of her element . . . it was a false sense of “solved”.
My brother and mother called often to tell me of the difficulty of my aunt. I heard from my brother that my aunt was huddled in the corner of a closet of her room. My mom and brother were both calling me frequently telling me how maddening the dog was; how odd Fern was. Fern would tell me nothing was wrong. It was tormentous for me.
That is when I knew it was time to change the board. Fern couldn’t stay there. The dream of being together as sisters forever was a dream. A fantasy that would never transpire. It made my heart so sad. My mom wouldn’t make room for Fern to occupy some of her space, and Fern felt she had no place to go but the closet. I could appreciate the incessant barking annoyance of the dog, Davie, and knew at that moment how much we had put upon my little brother, David, to manage all this and his alcoholism, too.
Alzheimer's State of Mind 