Like Lisa

The short film above, “My Name is Lisa” by Shelton Films, is a fictional account that portrays caring for someone with Alzheimer’s Disease. It won 3rd prize in Youtube’s 1st international short film competition. Perhaps some of you had already seen it. If you didn’t just watch it, I strongly encourage you to watch it now before you read my comments.

Okay, you watched it? I have a few comments.

I think it is a great short film on Alzheimer’s Disease. It does an excellent job of conveying certain feelings, some more obvious than others.

First, there is the emotional impact of discovering that the mother is sick: sick with Alzheimer’s and slipping away from the young girl. The impact of that was probably lessened for you, since I gave away what the film was about. To truly appreciate how that was pulled off, you have to watch the film the first time not knowing what it is about (as I did). There is a sense of confusion that changes to growing horror as realization sets in. Anyone who has dealt with a parent who succumbed to Alzheimer’s has dealt with that very confusion and horror in their own lives as the true reality of what they were dealing with became apparent. The film captures the essence of that discovery powerfully.

Second, the film captures the emotional arch of care-giving. Lisa starts out amused and bemused by her mother’s antics, but that quickly changes. Frustration and fears begin to mount, along with emotional exhaustion. Any caregiver recognizes this progression. I think the incident where Lisa blows up at her mother during the pizza delivery is particularly painful to watch because it stands in for the places and times where we have each failed in this way–either thinking, or even saying the equivalent of, “Why can’t you do it? You can’t do anything!” Each of us has felt some of the secret shame after such actions–as sure as the mother’s sad uncertain smile comes–because we know how wretched they are in their inability, and our anger and unkindness becomes like an awful accusation of our own failures. And anger cannot stave off the loss, personified when Lisa’s mother asks her, “Who are you?” For someone caring for their parent there is perhaps nothing more crushing than the sense of loss when Alzheimer’s finally robs them of the parent-child relationship. But that is not the end. The final step in the emotional arch comes as the film draws to a close and we see Lisa and her mother eating sandwiches. Acceptance and peace has been reached, the end every caregiver should hope and strive to reach. As Lisa says, “It’s okay, Mom.”

Finally, I think a lot of people get hung up on the “unreality” of a young girl caring for her very incapacitated mother. I think such fixation misses the powerful symbolic value of the film’s portrayal. Many adult children caring for their parents have, at one time or another, felt like little children again in the face of their parent’s dissolution. The enormity of the thing faced makes us feel small again. I am certain many adult daughters have felt like little Lisas, alone, afraid, and overwhelmed in caring for their parent. Choosing a young girl to portray the caregiver conveys this sense very well. A caregiver can look and say, “Yes, that was me. That was what it felt like.”

In care-giving, sometimes we are all like Lisa.