Reflections on Warren's book

My parents brought along a copy of Uncle Warren's book "Looking After Mother". I knew he had written the book some time ago, but hadn't had the chance to read it. To be honest, I was half dreading reading it because I knew for certain that it would bring up very painful memories of Ah Ma's passing. For the record, reading even a few pages of that book was more than enough to reduce me to tears.

Anyway, what I wanted to comment about is what Uncle Warren wrote about Alzheimer's (pg 21)

Note: even though Alzhemier's sufferers experience losses of memory, their long-term memory remains. Although Mum could not remember what she had for lunch, she could, however, still remember with ease events that happened more than sixty years ago. She could, for instance, relate to us her experiences as a refugee during the Japanese Occupation back in 1942; she could tell us about our childhood days more than fifty years ago; and she could recall family events when we were kids

All this.. And I never once thought to ask Ah Ma what her life was like! How incredibly STUPID can I be? Even after reading just 20+ pages, I have realized that there was so much going on in Ah Ma's life and I was just too absorbed in my own life to notice.

I'm in no mood to go into the details, but suffice to say that I am incredibly ashamed of how I treated Ah Ma in the last few years of her life. Ah Ma, if you happen to read this, I'm really really really sorry. Not that words can change anything...