Chanting with the Cat: Learning to Be an Alzheimer’s Caregiver

My husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis left us unmoored. Daily meditation grounds me

Elaine Handley,

AARP

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En español

Published August 06, 2025

a black cat with a person meditating and another person looking at pictures on a wall

Molly Snee

“Alzheimer’s,” the neurologist said, like he was giving us a weather report. No eye contact but a clinical rundown of infusions B could get and possible side effects: brain swelling, brain bleeds, death.

No expression of regret. No acknowledgment of the gut punch we had just taken. Maybe that was good — skating across the surface of the news helped us get out of his office upright. He said we could think about the infusions — maybe they’d buy us six months. When I asked, beyond that, what would be next, he said, “We monitor.”

We? No. I monitor.

I am the watcher, the daily eyewitness.

And this is what I’ve learned about Alzheimer’s disease: Besides the working memory, it affects decision-making, information processing, computation, spatial awareness, coordination and personality. I’ve learned that most people who are afflicted struggle with anxiety and agitation, some with depression, and others become combative. Many have delusions and hallucinations.

Alzheimer’s is a shape-shifter. Today, B talks lucidly about friends of ours who will come to supper and cogently about a book he has been writing; yesterday, he couldn’t remember his granddaughter’s name and got confused about whether his daughter was his niece.

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He’s often bewildered by his own forgetting, and I am bewildered too — by how deeply memory is tied to personhood. Before this, I hadn’t fully understood how memory isn’t just what we carry but who we are. Now I see — it wears us, like skin. And when it begins to fall away, we’re exposed. Vulnerable. Lost. And yet, B’s quirky charm still surfaces, much to my relief.

Alzheimer’s spirals, lurches. It mocks your plans. It shifts the meaningful to the menial: pills, bills, doctor appointments, household chores, reassurances; gentle prompts disguised as normalcy. B declares, “I’m not ga-ga yet!” but later says, “I think I’m losing my marbles.”

He leaves drawers open. Cat treats are in the linen closet. Mouthwash sits next to the bleach. Our winter hats have disappeared. He opens the windows and doors, no matter how cold it is.

I never thought of myself as impatient, but the looping questions wear at me.

“What time is the doctor’s appointment?”

“Do we have a doctor’s appointment?”

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“When do we leave for the doctor?”

“What — we’re going to the doctor?”

“Where are we going?”

By the fourth question, I want to lose it. Sometimes I do. “If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t ask,” he says softly.

I crumble. Ashamed, I apologize.

In the caregiver support group, there are many versions of this story, which earn quiet nods. We all struggle with moments of fracture. The leader tells us to answer repeated questions differently each time. It’s a challenge, a gentle game. “It forces you to respond rather than react.”

So I try.

“We leave at 1:30.”

“A little before 2:00.”

“After lunch, we’ll go.”

“Yep, time to see the doctor.”

“Check the calendar and see?”

Sometimes I manage it. Sometimes I don’t.

I live in a state of hypervigilance. I must remember for us both and watch for what’s no longer safe.

I note how physically frail B is becoming. He no longer walks confidently. He’s a bit bent. His hands shake. All day long, there are reminders of how vulnerable we are separately and together. He says he’s lonely. At first, I’m baffled — we’re always together. But I am lonely too. I suspect his comes from the wash and drift of thoughts and feelings, sometimes hard to capture. Words fail him, and unable to articulate experience and emotions, he becomes isolated.

My loneliness comes from the ways he genuinely cannot be there for me and from knowing it would be cruel to speak to him of how overwhelmed I am, watching his disintegration. How profoundly alone I feel by the many difficult decisions about our lives that are now mine alone.

In a quest to ground myself, I settle on another kind of looping: chanting a 12-minute Kirtan Kriya, repeating “saa taa naa maa” as I touch my fingertips in sequence. Two minutes aloud, two minutes whispering, four in silence, then whispering, then aloud again.

It’s a small ritual, but it reminds me there’s something underneath the chaos — something steady, something still. Science says this chant helps preserve memory and relieve stress. I hope it’s true. I end each session by asking for patience. For strength. For grace to live through another day of unraveling.

One morning, during the final two minutes, I heard a soft sound echoing me. Our cat had joined in, singing along. This cat rarely meows. But that morning, his voice rose and fell with mine. When I stopped, he stopped.

This disease humbles me. It teaches me the limits of patience and the weight of love. It scours away the parts of me I thought were solid. It’s having its way with both of us. But I don’t intend to let go of B. I will hang on to him for dear life, what there is left of it, in whatever form it takes. I don’t want his life to be defined by this disease. I don’t want my life to be defined by it either, but so far, it is. I trust I’ll find my footing in my job as watcher. Witness.

So each morning, I sit. I chant. I chant to remember myself. To remember the shape of who we were and who we still are.Sometimes the cat sings beside me.

Every morning, we begin again.

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