[TIMELINE: March–April 2024]
It took just five and a half years for Peggy to reach Stage 7, the official final stage of her early-onset Alzheimer’s. The day she died—and for days afterwards—my thoughts were all of her. I realized that her passing meant I was now entering “Stage 8,” what my fellow caregivers on the Alzconnected forum informally call the period of time after a loved one with dementia dies.
Part of me was relieved that it was over.
Part of me was just really, really sad.
And then the whole situation just became really surreal for me.
My partner Jon and I had been staying with Michael, my sister’s best friend, like we did during many of our visits to the Bay Area during this time. So once Peggy was safely transported away from memory care, we all went back to his house. We desperately needed to regroup.
Over the next couple of days, we emptied out Peggy’s room. It may seem crass that we rushed to do this as soon as possible, but the cost of her placement in memory care was close to $10,000 a month. The sooner we could empty and clean the room, the better. We finished up on Friday, March 8. It all moved so fast that it made my head spin—but I’m glad we did it that way.
Then the reality that I was suddenly not a caregiver anymore started to dawn on me. It made me feel kind of unsettled—and I wondered if that might not make sense to anyone but me. But even though I was sad that Peggy was now gone, I was glad about one thing: I was happy that she was done with Alzheimer’s forever. The last three months had been hell for her, and I was happy that she wasn’t going through it anymore. Now it was finally over.
Jon and I got back home to Washington by March 14, just in time for a session with Katy, my therapist. She’s a wise woman, so I knew she would have good advice for me, as always. And, in fact, she did. She told me, “Sit with your grief.” It was a simple directive, but a powerful one.
During the next couple of weeks, I worked with Michael to get everything arranged for Peggy’s funeral mass and the ’80s-themed memorial party we would host directly afterwards. This included prayer cards, decorations for the hall, the funeral announcements, and so on. I also went through a lot of family photos so that we could create a digital slideshow of her life to play at the memorial.
Through it all, there were many moments when I could scarcely believe I was planning my younger sister’s funeral. It was an emotional experience.
Thankfully, Michael was super helpful in helping me plan. One of the first things he did was get me in touch with my sister’s friend Tahoe. She and Peggy used to sing together in an ’80s cover band, and I wanted to talk to her to find out which songs had been in their repertoire back then. I really wanted to include some of those songs as part of Peggy’s memorial dance party.
I was actually somewhat apprehensive to ring up Tahoe, because Peggy had been telling me for years that Tahoe also had Alzheimer’s. I wasn’t sure how she was going to be on the phone. What stage of dementia was she at now? Would she be confused by my call?
To my shock (and relief), it turned out that Tahoe did not have Alzheimer’s at all! I was stunned, but glad for her. I guess Peggy had been wrong, or she had been projecting her own illness onto her friend. I should have known, since Peggy had been an unreliable narrator for some time.
Tahoe gave me a list of songs that she and Peggy used to sing, including one track that the band ended every gig with: “Goodbye To You” by Scandal. I wanted to include it in our memorial, but its title (and lyrics) gave Jon pause. It sounded so final, which it was. He was skeptical, so I put it to a vote—and our family and friends were just snarky enough that they opted to keep it. Ha!
In early April, Jon and I returned to the Bay Area and stayed with Michael again. Together, we finalized the plans for Peggy’s funeral mass and the dance party celebration of her life, and we worked to get the funeral announcement and her obituary posted online.
We held Peggy’s funeral on April 5th, with a full Catholic mass at Immaculate Conception, the little church my parents had attended. It was also where Peggy had gotten married in 1988. The priest who officiated Peggy’s mass knew my parents well. He also knew me and Peggy (and Les a bit), because he had officiated our father’s funeral in 2015, which Peggy and I had planned.
Because of the date we chose, the church was still all dressed up with beautiful Easter flowers. All those blooms made the sanctuary bright and light. I wrote the eulogy—which Michael and Jon had read through and approved for me beforehand—and delivered it during Peggy’s mass. Here’s a portion of it, because I feel that it captures the essence of Peggy:
If you know Peggy even a little bit, you know these things: She was a hopeful and optimistic person, music was in her blood, and she loved her family, friends, and animals—all animals, but especially cats. Even as a child Peggy was always hopeful, and always able to find the positive.
A silly memory that I still get a smile out of: When we were kids, my parents took us to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I think I was around 12, so Peggy must have been around 10. (Good parents, but they weren’t so great on selecting appropriate movies for children.)
So—spoiling the end of the movie—Butch and the Sundance Kid are holed up in a shack somewhere in Bolivia, surrounded by the police and a large number of army guys. They decide they can’t stay in the shack forever, so they decide to make a break for it. They run out the door as we hear a barrage of rounds being fired. The action freezes and goes from technicolor to sepia, while the Burt Bacharach score wells up.
No one would think that Butch and Sundance could escape that—except Peggy. When the movie ended, Peggy asked, “They got away, didn’t they?” Of course we said, “Yes.”
After the funeral mass, we moved the crowd next door to the church hall for the celebration of Peggy’s life. We served a lot of great food, kicked off that ’80s dance party we envisioned, and Les even played some tunes with his band. It was nice. I think Peggy would have approved.
However, as soon as the day’s activities came to an end, I realized I was done. Completely, utterly done. The thing I needed most at that point was to get away, immediately. Jon and I had planned to stick around for at least one more night, but I just couldn’t do it. I could not get out of that town fast enough. So we raced north and aimed for Redding, CA, one of our usual stopovers.
But once we made it to Redding, I realized we weren’t far enough away. It was raining and the weather was bad, but I didn’t care. I asked Jon if he was game for Yreka, that scenic town right near the Oregon border with the best rest stop ever. To my relief, Jon was up for it. So we kept going a little while longer and spent the night in Yreka. Honestly, though—if I hadn’t been so tired, I would have kept on driving until we got all the way home, all the way to Washington.