Chapter 28: Goodbye to Group
September 23, 2025
When mom died, dad was adamant that our notifications included a specific sentence asking people NOT to send flowers and I totally supported him on that. Why do people send death flowers, anyway? They’re never colourful – always muted and depressing to look at. I’ve honestly never understood how that gesture is actually supposed to make anyone feel better. Credit to Big Flower for the win, I guess.
All this to say, in the announcement we sent to everyone, we requested that IF people felt so inclined, they could make a donation in mom’s name to any organization which supports research into dementia or provides services to dementia patients and their caregivers. Within the first week, it was actually quite touching how many emails dad and I received from the Alzheimer’s Society, letting us know that people were, in fact, making donations to them in mom’s name. Over the past year, I have told anyone who would listen about how much the courses, support groups, resource library, and kindness of staff members at the Alzheimer’s Society reduced my personal stress levels so much. So I’m glad that some people have chosen to give a bit of money to help them help more families. Now THAT is the kind of gesture that can actually make someone feel good.
Speaking of support groups, mom and I have been attending a monthly in-person session that enabled her to attend a discussion with other dementia patients in one room; and me to attend another discussion with other caregivers in a second room. I’m not sure mom ever really enjoyed it; I think she tolerated it for me. According to the facilitator, she wouldn’t offer much. However, it was one more way to give dad a break for half a day. And as for me – that group became a literal lifeline. I looked forward to that meeting with “my crew” every month and was just about beside myself when I had to skip June’s meeting because of a work thing; and July was set as a break month for summer holidays. The distance between the May meeting and the August became an absolute eternity and I was so excited to “return to work” in August.
It’s still so hard to believe that we went to the August meeting just fine…and that mom was just – gone – by the next week. The same group of people has been showing up fairly regularly for about 6 months and so I asked the facilitator of my room if I could come in September to say goodbye to everyone since – well, that monthly commitment is now disappearing from my calendar. And that’s another level of grief I hadn’t anticipated.
So that brings us today – and what a cluster it turned out to be. Just before I walked in the door to the office, I noticed someone in the hallway – it was a person I had worked with at the Government of Alberta several years ago, but didn’t know very well. He recognized me as well and came over to say hello – he was at another office on the same floor to take some exam. Inevitably, he then asked what I was doing there and well…let’s just say, AWKWARD! I became a slobbering mess and probably made the poor guy feel terrible for asking in the first place. After I extracted myself from that, it was finally time to go into my room. But where the hell were all of my people?! Half the regulars I was hoping to see hadn’t shown up for whatever reason and there were a tonne of new people showing up for the first time. Ugh. This group was such a source of strength, comfort, and community for me. And now, when I want to say goodbye and feel – I don’t know, a sense of closure, maybe? I couldn’t even say it to the people I wanted to see.
Best laid plans not working out -that’s life in a nutshell, isn’t it? After I got home, I emailed the group facilitator and asked her to send out a goodbye message from me to the regulars. I hope that happens. And I hope I hear back from some of them…
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