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Betty Brickey Inspiration for Book and Daughter’s Work

Betty Brickey, 87, is a resident of Presbyterian Manor of Kansas City. She has resided in one of the Manor’s two Memory Support Centers since 2003, when her Alzheimer’s disease reached the point that she needed the care and support the Center offered her. It is this woman who was the inspiration for the book, The Birth Day Letter, written by Marci Holland, her daughter of Kansas City.

Besides being a homemaker, mother and grandmother, this gray-haired, short woman was a very active woman who “read a lot. She played bridge – a lot. In fact she had three very dear friends who played bridge with her for years.”

Brickey married at 17 and had her first daughter at 19. She had two daughters, Holland and Linda Howe, an attorney in Rock Island, Ill. She married, Howard Brickey, a journalist who worked as a sports writer for a Texas newspaper before moving to Kansas City where he worked for the Associated Press. He then went to Kansas Power and Light Company where he handled the firm’s public relations until his retirement in 1977.

It was about 1995, says Holland, when she and her family started realizing that “Mom wasn’t really tracking. We moved my parents out of their home of 48 years into an apartment. I noticed that she had begun to lose her ability to go to the grocery store. So I would go with her and I realized that she couldn’t carry out simple tasks like going down the aisle to pick out a bottle of salad dressing.”

She also started to lose her ability to cook, says Holland. “We found an apartment where their meals were fixed. Eventually, we had to get assisted living for her. Then she went to the Manor.”

For Holland, the most startling thing about Alzheimer’s was that her mother “didn’t know reality. I was definitely scared about that.” Brickey, for example, had breast cancer in 1985. When the subject came up, however, she always said “I’ve never had cancer or anything like that. The doctors just thought I did but I didn’t.” Yet the physical evidence of a mastectomy seemed to escape her.

Holland, explains that there are several stages of Alzheimer’s that patients go through. “Incoherence in their speech” is one of the stages. “She can’t pick out the word she needs.” Though her mother is still mobile, the next stage is when she won’t be able to walk. She will eventually be bedridden and then won’t be able to swallow.”

Somehow, Holland, explains, Alzheimer’s patients seem to be able to relate to each other. “They hold hands and they look out for each other. One time when I went to visit my mother, her roommate wouldn’t let me in their room because she’d never seen me before.”

What Holland is trying to do with her book is to bring understanding to the illness for those who don’t know about it, or who have a friend or relative with Alzheimer’s. The Birth Day Letter is the story of a 13-year-old girl whose mother waits until that birthday to give her a letter written by her grandmother, pre-Alzheimer’s. The letter was written on the day the teenager was born. It recounts the journey of a teenager, who wants to communicate with her grandmother and finds it a frustrating trip to understand the effects of Alzheimer’s. It has become a popular way to discuss this disease with audiences of various ages.

Since her book was published, Holland has continued her efforts to educate others on the subject through presentations and workshops in care homes for Alzheimer’s staff, support groups, at church women’s groups, and women’s clubs.

Her own children, now grown, have been among the book’s readers, and like many other readers of the book, both young and old, loved it and have cried on reading it. There have been numerous word-of-mouth referrals, says Holland from them and others.

The response to the book, available through mainstream book stores, like Borders and Barnes and Noble, as well as through Amazon.com, continues to be heartwarming, says Holland. Among the many letters she receives from those who have read the book are those who speak of being touched by its insight to the illness and teenagers. Said one adult reader: “I sat spellbound and emotionally involved and read the whole book that night and thought of my mother and her long battle with Alzheimer’s.” Another writer has admired the fact that she had written about the subject through the eyes of a teenager, yet made it “good reading for any age group.”

Holland graduated from Baker University in Baldwin with a degree in elementary education. Since she taught 8th grade reading, she is now turning her efforts to reaching teenagers through school programs.

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