One family’s Alzheimer’s story a reminder moms come in all forms

There’s just something about mom. She won’t let you get away with anything and yet, she’s your best friend.

That’s certainly true of Cassie Moore, 18, who’s barreling full steam ahead into adulthood, eager to fly from the nest.

“I either want to be in the CIA or State Department,” she said.

Cassie is the kind of child you wish for. Her mom, Lori Moore, knows she’s lucky.

The mother-daughter bond between these two is strong. That’s why Cassie knew that something was wrong. The first time it happened, Cassie was in 8th grade.

Her mom was supposed to pick her up from school, but she forgot.

“She would get frustrated, but she was always good at hiding it,” Cassie said. “She was so smart, that’s why we think she was able to hide the disease for so long. She could just play it off as being really busy at work. I would just write it off as that.”

But then it happened again and again. And nothing gets past Cassie. She didn’t buy her mom’s excuses. She turned to the Internet.

“I’m sure my Internet history was just ‘Alzheimer’s signs, Alzheimer’s signs,'” she said.

Others started noticing it too. It was time for a diagnosis.

“When she was diagnosed, she was terrified,” Cassie said. “She didn’t really know what to call it because she didn’t want to call it Alzheimer’s &#8212 she knew the name and she knew the disease. She cried a lot for about six months.”

Lori was just 52 years old &#8212 young for Alzheimer’s, but not unheard of.

“We never exactly knew if she was totally aware that she had the diagnosis, but she would be really terrified,” Cassie said. “We recently found, when we were moving out of her house, a note: ‘Scared of ALZ.’ She was trying to jot down notes. She was writing me and my sister’s names over and over on pieces of paper. It was painful to discover that.”

Try as she may, Alzheimer’s is not a forgiving disease. There’s no cure and ultimately, it’s fatal. But that’s after years of losing your brain function.

As the years progressed, young Cassie took over. She was now the caregiver.

“She would walk in and fall,” she recalled. “We have three stairs. So I’d have to run and help her there. She would leave the grill on and the stove on.”

Cassie was doing the impossible &#8212 balancing school and her mom’s deteriorating health.

That’s when Lori’s older sister &#8212 Cassie’s aunt Carol &#8212 moved in with them to help. But the disease took a turn for the worse.

“Living with Lori showed me there wasn’t anything we could do and nothing was slowing it down,” Carol said. “It was so brutal. We decided it wasn’t safe for her to live in her house because she no longer recognized herself in the mirror. It was frightening for her.”

While it seems like life has stacked the deck against this family, both Cassie and Carol are quick to point out the many blessings that have come long, like the Aegis Assisted Living facility in Seattle. It’s where Lori is now living and thriving.

She’s all smiles when she holds her daughter’s hand.

“I love to dance,” Lori told me.

The only questions I asked were about her daughter. The disease has progressed to the point that Lori doesn’t know she has Alzheimer’s. We just focused on Cassie.

“I like how she stands up and she loves to be a good kid,” Lori said. “You don’t have to worry about any of that.”

Cassie and Lori owe a lot to the adept staff at Aegis Living, who figured out that Lori &#8212 being a former Microsoft VP &#8212 loved work. So they made her an employee. It’s a game of make-believe, but to Lori, it’s very real.

“They had a meeting with her,” Cassie said. “They wrote a contract with her. Every person here is under the premise of ‘Oh, Lori, our boss.’ It’s probably the best gift that’s been given to me throughout this experience.”

Not every day is this easy. Cassie is a arguably at a time when daughters need their moms the most. In a span of just two years, from diagnosis to today, Alzheimer’s has forced Cassie to talk about her mom in the past tense.

“She was my confidant,” Cassie said. “She was who I’d go to for laughter. I think she was just my best friend. We could talk about anything.”

The mom Cassie knew may be gone.

“I just miss having conversations with her.”

But she will cherish this new version of mom she still has. And aunt Carol is mom, too. Alzheimer’s has a way of expanding the definition of family.

Today was a good day for Lori, Cassie, and Carol, too. Lori was smiling and running her fingers through her daughter’s long hair and she began to braid it &#8212 something that moms and daughters do all over the world &#8212 except Lori couldn’t remember how. Aunt Carol stepped in.

No matter what you call it &#8212 friend, teacher, caregiver, healer of broken hearts &#8212 that’s mom. And she comes in all forms.