Remembering My Mom

It's been five years since I lost my mom to Alzheimer's disease, cancer and COVID.

January 16 marks five years since my mom died.

After my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2008, I often told people close to me that I hoped she would never get to the point where everything in her body shut down. I wanted her to be spared from a prolonged, painful decline.

I didn’t get my wish. By the time the pandemic struck in 2020, Alzheimer’s already had robbed my mom of the ability to do anything on her own. She also had a rare form of cancer and was receiving hospice care. My mom was just about a week away from being moved into a hospice facility for end-of-life care when I got a call from her memory care facility on January 11, 2021, that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

Because her memory care facility wasn’t allowing residents to quarantine there and the hospice facility wasn’t taking in COVID-positive patients, I brought my mom to my house to care for her during her final days. I was by her side in full protective gear — N95 mask, face shield, plastic gown and gloves — as she took her final breath.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot about caring for my mom and managing her finances after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. But I realized that I’ve never really shared anything about who she was as a person.

The obituary my sister and I wrote for her captures how full of life my mom was before, and even after, her diagnosis. I’m sharing it here to honor her memory and to help all of you who’ve read my book or articles mentioning my mom get to know her a little better. (I’ll get back to doling out financial advice as usual with my next newsletter.)

Obituary for Mary W. Huddleston

Mary W. Huddleston of Bowling Green, Ky., died Saturday morning of Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and COVID-19. She was 77.

Known as Winkie, she was raised in Nashville, Tenn., and her parents instilled in her all of the social graces befitting a southern belle. Yet, growing up with three brothers, Winkie wasn’t afraid to get her smocked dresses dirty running around with her beloved dog Nipper and making mudpies that she conned the boy next door into eating.

She was a graduate of Sophie Newcomb College, the women’s college of Tulane University. She studied history and Spanish, pledged Pi Beta Phi sorority and was on the water ballet team. What she loved most about her time in college, though, was being in New Orleans, where she embraced the sounds, smells and tastes of the city and the diversity of its people.

Winkie was a social worker in Louisville, Ky., in the 1960s — a profession her youngest daughter now shares. She often witnessed profound oppression and inequality. However, Winkie always found hope despite seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Her true gift was finding beauty in everything and creating it where it didn’t exist. Winkie found beauty in spring flowers, Spanish guitar music and a well-played tennis match. Any walk through a new city was frequently punctuated with exclamations of “Look at the architecture!” She was a true artist, and it showed in her paintings, the way she decorated her home, the gardens she grew, the matching dresses she sewed for her daughters when they were little, and the stunning galas she conceived and created for the Capitol Arts Center.

Winkie was an incredibly giving person, always volunteering her time for the Capitol Arts Center, the Bowling Green-Warren County Arts Commission, the Presbyterian Church, and numerous other organizations and events in Bowling Green.

She gave of her talents. kindness and compassion for more than 15 years as an assistant pre-school teacher at the Saint Joseph Interparochial School in Bowling Green, where she was loved by her students and their parents. Winkie loved playing tennis, and her tennis group became some of her closest friends. She was an incredible cook, but her daughters will remember her “French market doughnuts” as her greatest culinary accomplishment. She loved entertaining and was always the life of the party.

Winkie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 65. Although the disease slowly robbed her of her memory, it never took away the essence of who she truly was. Her cheerfulness, kindness and openness remained.

Winkie lives on in her daughters’ humor, creativity, compassion, volunteerism, love of culture and exploration, involvement in arts and sports, and the occasional exuberant appreciation of architecture.