My Mother and Crab

 

 I had lived with my mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, for fourteen years.

 One day, my wife and her parents, my mother, and I traveled to Fukui Prefecture.

 Traveling with my mother was already hard for us, but we thought it might be our final trip with her. At that time, if we take her to the entrance of a restroom, she had the ability to take care of herself, and she could come back to the entrance. If she lost that ability, traveling with her might be very difficult.

 The specialty of Fukui Prefecture is crab. One popular way to eat crab in Japan is whole-boiled. We break the crab shells by ourselves and eat. The travel agency produced tons of whole-boiled crab for us as all-you-can-eat.

 My mother couldn’t break crab shells by herself, so I broke them for her. But there was a problem.

 Her eating speed was faster than my breaking speed. As a result, I kept breaking shells for a half-hour, but I couldn’t eat even one bite of meat. What kind of punishment was that! Is this exploitation?

 My wife noticed that. She started to break the shells instead of me. I finally could eat crab.

 Once, at a very early stage of her Alzheimer’s, my mother had a nickname in day service: Ms. Consideration. But the disease reduced her consideration.

 This was our final travel to another prefecture with my mother.

 I strongly remember breaking crab shells for a half hour. It was hard but it’s a good memory.

 If you are traveling with an Alzheimer’s patient, I recommend you choose a meal that is easy to eat.

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Picture by takagix