Lori La Bey, one of the bloggers in our network, recently wrote a tender piece about visiting her mother.

Today as I sat and visited with my Mother I had to admit to myself I was struggling.

Struggling to get her to engage me.

To notice me.

To react to me.

As I felt a lump grow in my throat and my eyes begin to well with tears, I realized my focus was all wrong.  I had fallen back into one of my old patterns.  One of setting expectations of my Mother.   I wanted her to meet me where I was, verses me meeting her where she was.

Setting expectations is such a simple thing to do wrong when visiting a person with Alzheimer’s.  Depending on the stage of the disease they may not even know we have expectations of them.  If they do understand, they probably won’t know how to meet our expectations. Once I understood what was wrong I could correct the problem.  I could correct me.

Read more at the Alzheimer's Speaks blog:

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