{"id":342394,"date":"2013-10-09T04:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T02:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/the-flowery-path-living-with-alzheimers\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:10:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:10:37","slug":"the-flowery-path-living-with-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/the-flowery-path-living-with-alzheimers\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Flowery Path”: Living With Alzheimer\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cMy mother, in her eighties, has begun to make steps on the flowery path:<\/em> gradually she no longer thought, and saw things with the heart. Finally, her heart gave in and her pure eyes were all that remained. She\u2019s often a child of six or seven and asks about her small friends; sometimes she weeps because of her longing to see her Mamma and Papa; but then she trustfully smiles as she steps in and out of the flowery path<\/em>. Occasionally, following my Mother, I also step onto the flowery path<\/em>, and the worrisome burdens of the world are turned into light clouds in the sky; I also become a mere flower within my mother\u2019s secure enclosure.\u201d

\"\"<\/a>

The award ceremony took place on September 16, 2013 in the Conference Hall of Coex a Seoul.<\/p><\/div> These are the opening lines of the preface of the book “<\/em>My Mother\u2019s Fowery Path<\/strong>” (1). The book, a collection of episodes and events that warm the heart, was written by Korean author, Maria Goretti Jeung Ae Jang, poet and nurse. She writes of the period she spent beside her mother with Alzheimer\u2019s. The book is the 2013 recipient of the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare\u2019s National Award for good practice in assisting Alzheimer\u2019s patients. The award ceremony took place on September 16, 2013 in the Conference Hall of Coex and the award was given by the Minister of Health and Welfare. \u201cWhen I wrote about the experiences with my mother,\u201d the surprised author recounts, \u201cI didn\u2019t even know that such an award existed. My only hope was that the book would be helpful to family members whose lives have been impacted by this illness. This is a great gift for me that I never thought of receiving. I only loved my mother who suffers with Alzheimer\u2019s; then I wished to share these experiences with others. But I\u2019m very happy because this was an opportunity to make the book known to many other people who might read it and see that no illness can remove one\u2019s human dignity.\u201d

\"\"<\/a>

Right: Korean author, Maria Goretti Jeung<\/p><\/div> The author continues: \u201cAlzheimer\u2019s disease is a tiring process for both patient and family. But I think that suffering is purifying. I\u2019d like to propose that we not fear Alzheimer\u2019s, but accept it as an illness that can affect anyone, and to try to face the treatment of the disease through the eyes of the patient.\u201d She concluded: \u201cLet us do away with the negative feelings in our hearts and look after these people with love. Then Alzheimer\u2019s will be a side of life that we will be able to live with.\u201d \u201cWith all my heart I thank Chiara Lubich<\/a>, whom I consider to be my spiritual mother,\u201d Jang confessed, \u201cbecause she taught me to love. The spirituality of unity<\/a> indeed helped prepare me to see the face of the suffering Jesus in my mother, beyond the illness which rendered her more and more helpless. This was the key that enabled me to see her as truly precious and to recognize and appreciate her human dignity. Chiara\u2019s words rang loud and clear to me, which she spoke many years ago: \u201cYou must be mothers of your mothers. . .\u201d For me this was a veritable mandate.\u201d (1) Translation from Korean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A book written by a South Korean poet and nurse receives award from Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}