Morris Greenberg’s bushy eyebrows don’t dance.
The 76-year-old is opening a present, but with his chin tucked into his chest, his gaze is toward the ground and it’s hard to see his big brown eyes. His longtime friend Laurie Zahner helps him tear off the blue wrapping paper.
“You look at him and you think he’s not there. But he absolutely is there,” Zahner, 59, said.
She knows that, because even though Greenberg has Lewy body dementia and Parkinsonism, she said, he still asks her about her children and they reminisce about the synagogue they formed with their families. And during a small Hannukah celebration last week at Walnut Village, a continuing care retirement community in Anaheim, when Zahner led Greenberg and his family in reciting a blessing, Greenberg chimed along.
People with memory loss might not be able to communicate very well, Zahner said, but resurrect a tradition steeped in childhood memories, and “they kick right up.”
Zahner is at ease around Greenberg. She kissed him on the cheek and brought him homemade sprinkled cookies, telling him, “I know you have a sweet tooth.” She once ran an adult day care center in Santa Monica, but more importantly, she said, “he’s my friend.”
It’s Greenberg’s first holiday in an assisted-living home. His wife of 42 years, Phyllis Greenberg, who visits him every day, is surrounding him with loved ones.
On such special occasions as Hannukah, she reserves a table in the community’s upscale dining room.
“Whatever I can do to bring normalcy to him, that’s what I’m doing,” she said. “It’s pretty hard to handle the holidays, if you only come once in a while. People get really rare visits; it’s sad. That connection is very, very important, so that they do not feel abandoned. If they feel abandoned, I don’t know what you can do for the holidays.”
Having a family around is reassuring, Morris’ son David Greenberg said.
Asked to impart a piece of advice for other families spending the holidays with a relative with memory loss, he offered: “Hopefully they have a good family – that’s the best medicine.”
Contact the writer: jchandler@ocregister.com and @jennakchandler on Twitter
