Charlton Heston died last week, I didn’t know him personally. I only knew him through the “make believe” of the movies. Someone found the press release he read announcing his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and I just re-read it. To me it was in effect his announcement of the beginning of his “long good bye.” Reading it reconfirmed for me that many, too many individuals, even those diagnosed with the disease see the diagnosis as the start of a long “good bye.”

We announce and prepare ourselves and others to the fact that we have already started to fade away. It starts the moment someone in a white coat tells us “You have Dementia, probably of this or that type, and certainly with these features.” My reaction and apparently the reaction of Mr. Heston to these words was I’m on my way out! It’s all downhill from here! Don’t look for me anymore; I’m going to be busy fading away and not being me.

We are seldom seen post diagnosis. We seldom speak up or speak out post diagnosis. How many famous people have you seen or heard from after they announced they had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease? Where do they go? What do they do? After all we are fading away. What could we have worthwhile to say? Could we possible grow as a human being after we have been diagnosed? Perhaps we will become someone we would be embarrassed to be, were we capable of appreciating who we had become!

In reality who is embarrassed for whom? Will I be embarrassed for ourselves? Or will other people be embarassed for me? How do you know I’m not accepting, perhaps even contented with who I am today. Even if I’m sometimes frustrated; even if I’m sometimes agitated; I’m still me!

Isn’t it time others who don’t live with the diagnosis focus their energies on understanding, appreciating, supporting, enabling those of us who do live with the diagnosis as we are in the present moment? Don’t concentrate on who we were? Don’t try to convince us we should hang on to yesterday, or last year, or fifty years ago - especially when we are struggling to understand today!  Wouldn’t it be easier to love someone we believed was a whole person, instead of someone half empty?

Many people with dementia and many caregivers keep saying “good-bye.” I, and I honestly believe every other person living with and in dementia, need to hear, feel, and be supported by saying “Hello!” and hear others say to me “Hello.” I need others to answer my “hello” with today - not yesterday! This is not an issue just for those in the late stage of the disease, or just for those in the mid stage of the disease. It starts the day the diagnosis is pronounced. Collectively, and individually we need to find the courage, the support, the understanding to say “hello” to ourselves and each other.

Every day! Every day! It’s that simple! It’s that easy! Reduce stress, increase the quality and quantity of the love you give and receive, enjoy and live in today.

“Hello”
Richard