Two Women

 

No, it's not about the famous italian movie 'Two Women' with Sophia Loren (widow), and her daughter, who had to leave Rome during the war.

My post is about two former neighbors of mine (rip), mother (widow) and daughter who had both Alzheimer.

What I've learned from their sad case is that genetics, even though it is inescapable,  can nevertheless  be delayed  -  provided the other two  factors on the pyramid, stress and nutrition, are kept under control. Nutrition is the easy part. We definitely can control it. Stress, is another matter; it  is not entirely in our hands. Sometimes, people have to leave home and/or work, , in order to survive, as stress in these places is too much for them; it kills.

The mother , a widow, lived alone in a small flat. Was of a calm nature and led a quiet, uneventful life. She got diagnosed with Alzheimer in her mid-seventies.When the disease progressed, she was placed in an adequate facility, where she was taken good care of. She was well over 90 when she passed.

The daughter lived with her husband and two teenage girls in an adjacent building. She had a stressful life, especially because of conflicts with her husband. Unfortunately for her, he retired early from work, and was constantly at home, doing nothing but criticizing her.

She was diagnosed with Alzheimer in her mid sixties, some ten years earlier than her mother. After getting diagnosed, she was given a live-in home carer.

Sometimes, I used to see her  with the carer outside , and it broke my heart. I 'd known her as a tall, talkative, active person - and there she was - her head down, not recognizing anyone, not talking, a fragment of the original person. With her, the disease progressed rapidly.

It seemed her two daughters (who'd left home but not the town) gave up on her. If they would have been there  to hug her, cuddle her, talk to her, maybe she would have felt something, reacted to love and attention, retained some form of humanity.

 * 

We come into the world alone and we leave it alone, even though there are people around us, at birth and at funerals. Those with Alzheimer not only come and leave alone, but also live alone, in a world completely their own.

The Greatest Fear of All ..

Over the years, I've sometimes wondered about the fate of an 11 year old boy kidnapped by his father without his knowing at the time, that prior to  that, the father had already murdered  his (the boy's) mother and grandmother.

Only recently, twenty years later, the boy, now a 31-year veterinary doctor,  married man, and father of a child - has decided to open up on his traumatic story.
(I got to read only the written version, an exclusive interview; haven't watched yet the doco entitled 'Daddy where are my Mom and my Grandma?' created by the journalist - interviewer).

Both parents were scientists at the prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science in the town of Rechovot; they were not married,  but had a court parenthood agreement regarding the boy's  living with his mother and being on certain days at his father's place.

The police had no clue about the whereabouts of father and son. It was the kidnapped boy that finally provided the clue.
Whenever left alone in the hotel room in Bern, Switzerland (fugitive father being busy with getting passports) - he tried and succeeded to dial to the phone numbers of his mother/grandmother in Israel;  these unanswered phone calls were intercepted by the police and eventually led to the capture of the father.

At the trial, the child, still in trauma and tearful, was brought to give testimony , but he refused to do so in his father's presence; he was terrified and unable to face him. So the father had to be taken out of the room.

The young vet has still good reason to be afraid of his father. The latter (sentenced for life) might find a way to get a temporary leave from prison and try to meet "his  boy". So far, his repeated requests for such a leave have been rejected. But... one never knows. The interview, however, ends on an optimistic note.

Somehow, reading  between the lines, I got the feeling that the son's  greatest fear of all was ...genetics. 

We can never predict the right combination of genes that one inherits from mother and father, if at all. As a medical person and son of two scientists, he knows more than we do about that, and I suppose he's, naturally, worried if not for himself, then for his offspring.

They say (jokingly) about money that Money's not all, it's just the One thing.  Genetics, they say (seriously), is not the One thing that determines our future; Environment is also a factor and it can influence our genes and traits.  True, only no one seems to know the proper formula. (By the way, the father grew up in the best environment one could dream of - in one of the most rich and respectable families in the town of Rechovot).