Sister Sheral: I write now with a sense of urgency. During the past few months, I have become more and more aware of how Alzheimer’s has affected my behaviors and attitudes. I share my experience as a 77-year-old Franciscan sister looking forward to celebrating my 60th jubilee soon. At the same time, I am becoming more aware of my vulnerability and dreading my decline.
I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018, after four years of resisting, excusing and denying the major changes in too many of my everyday decisions and behaviors. Fortunately, Maureen Sinnott, O.S.F., the sister with whom I have been living for a long time, is a recently retired clinical psychologist. She refused to give up on her efforts to alert me to these constant behaviors that have indicated the presence of Alzheimer’s since 2014.
Sister Maureen: Sister Sheral and I have been good friends for many years. She is still very articulate, joyous, positive and outgoing. She has a global heart that worries about and prays for all who live on the margins. Those who have been touched by her compassion and loving kindness include a very wide-open circle of multicultural friends. She has been a leader in our St. Francis Province of sisters and has been elected to our province leadership team, served as our vocation director for women interested in joining our community and been a member of our Marian Regional Medical Center hospital board. She has been coordinator of educational and outreach ministries for three multicultural parishes in the San Francisco Bay Area for decades and has served as leader of the vocations offices in the Sacramento and San Francisco dioceses. She has been to our border with Mexico to better understand and serve those crossing over. After Hurricane Katrina, she went to Louisiana to help the survivors find temporary housing and other assistance.
We are blessed that Sister Sheral is still able to write about the vulnerability of living with Alzheimer’s and advocate for others. But there is no cure. She is experiencing a decline, which we are facing together.
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Sheral Marshall, O.S.F., is committed to sharing her experience of Alzheimer’s through speaking and advocating for those living with the disease and the family members and caregivers who love them. She earned a master’s degree in theology from University of San Francisco.
Maureen Sinnott, O.S.F., is a retired clinical psychologist and worked as a nurse-midwife in Ireland, Taiwan and Tanzania. She is currently an advocate with the Alzheimer’s Association.
With thanks to the America Magazine, where this article originally appeared.
