Like many Vermonters, Deanna Shapiro of Ferrisburg saw her mother through several years of Alzheimer's disease, ending with fourteen months in a nursing home. But unlike most of us, Shapiro is a poet; and she has distilled her experience in a book of poems, describing her mother's final journey and her own growth in understanding of both herself and her mother. Although the book focuses on Shapiro's visits to the nursing home and her mother's increasingly confused conversation, it is really about a mother/daughter relationship.

"Conversations at the Nursing Home: A Mother, A Daughter, and Alzheimer's" starts out with a short series of poems describing the mother, Ruth Tornberg Klein, and Shapiro's youthful and troubled relationship with her.

Something long ago
made my mother
step back from life.
She retracted her body,
shrunk into her skeleton,
and printed three words
on her forehead:
No, I can't!
That's what
I had against her –
For the anguish of it all.
…
No, no, I shout.
I choose Life.
I choose Life!

The second group of poems describes Ruth's family history, with Shapiro finding some understanding of the reasons for her mother's fearfulness and rigidity. The core of the book and the longest section is a series of poems recounting conversations between mother and daughter during Ruth's stay at Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Middlebury. Shapiro conveys her mother's growing agitation and final angry and painful silence as well as her own frustration and grief.  The final section is brief, describing the day Ruth died, the staff's detailed memories, and Deanna's first Mother's Day without her mother.

Shapiro started writing late in her life when she followed up her interest in her family's immigrant history and roots in the Ukraine by recording interviews with her oldest family members. That's when she learned about her mother's loss of her own mother when she was two years old and her subsequent sad childhood. Shapiro turned to poetry, she says because of "its economy and emotional compactness." She found support and encouragement for her writing at the Otter Creek Poetry Workshop.

"You need a certain number of years to mature into these places," says Shapiro, 67, of her struggle to understand and appreciate her mother. When people are young, she says, they are caught up with child rearing and professional responsibilities. They don't have the time or the inclination to delve into family history and understand their parents as separate human beings and their relationship with them. "I was not interested in finding out about my own family," she says," until I became a parent."

"I finally came to enjoy my time with my mother because I was able to put a distance between her and me and have my own life," Shapiro says. I could see who she was, what set the tenor of her life. I could understand her better and enjoy her humor, intelligence, spirituality, and elegance." 

I, at last, had compassion for her
For I had transitioned too –
I had built myself a house
with a firm foundation,
well-insulated, aesthetically pleasing,
a place from which I could care for her
and finally release our past.
One day she said,
The best thing I ever did
Was to have a daughter!

Despite the obvious frustrations and grief involved with Alzheimer's disease, Shapiro treasures her last months with her mother. "One learns a lot in a dementia unit," she says. "Although it's overwhelmingly sad and depressing, it's also an opportunity to learn humility, gratitude, patience, and acceptance. I realized my own helplessness and vulnerability. I learned to be calm, open to the pain of the situation, accept it, and be present. It is a blessing and a privilege to accompany a person on a voyage through Alzheimer's."

Deanna Shapiro has been speaking to local groups about "Conversations at the Nursing Home." She can be reached at 802-877-8332, artmt@wildblue.net

"Caring For Yourself and Your Loved One: You Are Not Alone,"
2007 Vermont Alzheimer's Family Caregiver Conference
Monday, June 11, 8 am – 3:30 pm at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier.
Registration: $10, includes lunch.
Information: Alzheimer's Association of Vermont, 802-477-7000

Barbara Leitenberg writes on senior issues for the Champlain Valley Agency on Aging. This article originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press.