Free Sweet Surrender by Mary Moody

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    Eventually, Ken cajoled Margaret into seeking a referral to a neurologist. She wasn’t just forgetting where she put the car keys; she was actually hiding them. The mail started to go astray. She would forgetto pass on phone messages and she also started to become unsettled and at times agitated. She stopped reading and watching television and started to go to bed earlier and earlier. Losing herself in sleep. It was totally uncharacteristic of this vibrant, involved woman.
    Every Wednesday, Margaret had lunch with her art group, a small, tight-knit band of women from vastly different backgrounds who loved the pleasure of getting together, painting, and then sitting down to a meal, each bringing a plate of food to share. For nearly twenty years they had met in each other’s homes. They would spread plastic sheets on the tables, and sit around talking and laughing non-stop while painting furiously. Members of the group had also travelled overseas together, packing up their oils and watercolours and renting small houses in the French, Spanish or Italian countryside.
    One such trip – this time to France – had been planned several months after Margaret had her appointment with the neurologist. The results of the test had not been good, and Ken was keeping it close to his chest on the assumption that Margaret wouldn’t want people to know. It was a definite diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and, according to the test results, her condition was fairly advanced. By no means was she in the ‘early stages’ of her long and tortuous journey. She had already negotiated a big stretch of the road, and she had done so without her condition being detected by her doctor or her friends. It was obvious that her intelligence had enabled her to bluff her way through. By the time her condition was finally acknowledged she had already reached the stage of retreating into her own world.
    Ken and Margaret and two friends rented a holiday house in a coastal town north of Bordeaux. I was in Paris, at the end of my annual French walking tour, and took a train down to spend a day with them. It had been almost a year since our first overwhelming reunion and I was keen to maintain contact as much as possible. They met me at the station and took me to their little house where a wonderful lunch was waiting. I didn’t notice anything different about Margaret, except perhaps thatshe looked a little thinner and frailer than I remembered. I had thought of her as being small but wiry and strong. This time she seemed a little less confident in her stride, more cautious, more hesitant.
    After lunch we went sightseeing, and stopped for a cup of tea in a local cafe. Margaret and her friend Dorothy left to do some window-shopping, then Ken put his hand on my arm and told me, quickly and quietly, that Margaret had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I was devastated. How could this be? My clever sister. I’d only just found her again. I had only just started to rebuild our relationship. And now I was going to lose her.
    I cried on the train going back to Paris that night. Selfish tears of pain and loss. I wasn’t thinking of Margaret but of myself, and my anguish. I was angry and felt cheated. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Our reunion was supposed to have a happy ending, not be the beginning of a nightmare.
    My reaction was one of grief, understandable at the time. But after wrestling with my emotions for a few days, I recognised the truth of the situation. How fortunate I had been to find Margaret when I did. How lucky I was to have enjoyed the time we had already shared over the previous eighteen months, writing and talking and reminiscing about our common heritage. Imagine if I had found Margaret five years hence? Then, perhaps, I would have good cause to feel sorry – for both of us. I had to put it into perspective. Finding Margaret had been totally positive. A gift in my life. Nothing, not even