Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Winter 2014 | Page 44

wHEaton readings
Alzheimer’s:
When the Shadows Lengthen
by Jeanne Murray Walker ’66

For almost a decade, Jeanne Murray Walker ’66 and her sister, Julie, took care of their
mother. In the preface to her book, The Geography of Memory: A Pilgrimage Through
Alzheimer’s, Jeanne writes, “I learned that to stay and struggle through Alzheimer’s
is to reap gifts that may not come any other way.” By focusing on more than just the

s

catastrophes of the disease, she writes, “I have tried to bear witness to and name the
gifts that came to us. This naming, I trust, will offer hope to Alzheimer’s patients, to
their spouses and children, to all the disease has terrorized.” Following is an excerpt
from her book.
Jeanne Murray Walker ’66
is professor of English at
the University of Delaware
as well as a mentor in the
Seattle Pacific University
Low Residency MFA
Program. Her poems and
essays have appeared in
seven books as well as
many periodicals, including
Poetry, The Georgia Review,
American Poetry Review,
Image, The Atlantic Monthly,
and Best American Poetry.
Among her awards are
an NEA Fellowship, eight
Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts Fellowships, and a
Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
In her spare time Jeanne
gardens, cooks, and travels.

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oon after my visit to the Lincoln Christian
School, Mother detonates a small
explosive device. She tells me she isn’t
driving her car anymore. I exhale into the
phone. “Why?”
“My tires look soft.”
“The Saturn dealership is half a mile
from you. They’ll check your tires.”
“They’ll tell me I need new ones.”
“I thought you liked the guys over
there.”
“I’m not as naïve as I look, honey.”
I’m used to the way Mother invents
pretexts, but soft tires is a doozy of a
pretext for giving up her car.
She counts on driving. She started on
a Model T (or was it a Model A?) when
she was fifteen. She is by nature restless,
and driving gives her a small way to
exert control over circumstances she can’t
change.

I refuse to believe she’s stopped driving
because her tires are soft.
I believe she’s afraid she’ll get lost.
She’s been lost more than once. A
month ago, for instance, when she was
driving back from the shopping mall,
she panicked. Nothing looked familiar.
She couldn’t remember where to turn.
So although she hates the feeling of ice
against her teeth, she stopped at a Rita’s
Water Ice.
Carrying her lemon ice to a table, she
sat, watching customers come and go.
Eventually she zeroed in on a pleasantlooking couple. Approaching them, she
explained that she was lost. When they
asked where she lived, she showed them
her driver’s license. The man helped her
into the passenger seat of her own car. He
drove her home while his wife followed
in their Chrysler.