Ren Huan, 41, is a white-collar worker working in Shanghai. In May 2021, she chose to quit her job with an annual salary of millions of dollars to care for her mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
After that, the topic related to Ren Huan caused heated discussion, and more than a dozen media successively found her and followed up the report.
Among them, "female white-collar workers", "annual salary millions", and "naked words" are words that cannot be circumvented. The discussion of netizens also focused on these points, and the information about "companionship" was ignored.
"That's true, but I want people to pay more attention to spending time with their parents or to the Alzheimer's community." At the end of March, on the phone, Ren Huan said this to "the most people".
If it were not for Huan Ma, who always had a strong sense of direction, and began to gradually forget the route, Ren Huan might not have sensed the change in her mother.
In her eyes, her mother was a shrewd and capable person. As the eldest sister in the family, Huan Mama suffered too much when she was young, tasted the hardships of half a life, and when she reached the age when she should have enjoyed a peaceful life, she suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease, also known as Alzheimer's disease. Relevant data show that in China, there are more than 10 million Alzheimer's disease patients. Globally, on average, there is one more person with dementia every 3 seconds.
In the past four years, Ren Huan has witnessed the change process of her mother's condition from moderate to severe. She teased that her mother was now speaking in a disorderly and illogical manner, like "serious nonsense."
But remembering the bits and pieces of the past, she cried uncontrollably.
Ren Huan said that this disease reaches the later stage, making people dementia, incapacitated, and urinary and urinary incontinence. "But no matter what, I will do my best to make my mother live with dignity in the last stages of her life."
Ren Huan taught her mother to learn
It seems to be identity swapping.
In the past year, Ren Huan has taught her mother to count and English like when she was a child, teaching her to do math and English, and occasionally singing a few songs together in the living room.
She doesn't skimp on saying sweet things. "I can't live without you", "I can't bear you", "I can't see you for a day"... Become the words that Ren Huan hangs on his lips all day long.
The decision to make a naked resignation, she didn't think about it for long. But if you don't worry about the obstacles you may encounter when you return to the workplace in the future, of course, you are a lie.
And the most precious thing at the moment is companionship.
Ren Huan is racing against time, and she hopes that before her mother completely forgets herself, she can spend an unforgettable day and leave some precious memories, a beautiful memory that belongs exclusively to mother and daughter.
"As long as my mother is there, I still have a home." She said.
Ren Huan, a native of Chongqing, joined a local state-owned bank after graduating from university. Three years later, she resigned and went to Beijing to work for a foreign bank.
At that time, as the only daughter in the family, she was pampered and hoped that the farther away from home she was, the better, "without the supervision of her parents." Even if Beijing had no relatives and no reason at that time, Ren Huan still firmly chose to drift north.
After working hard in Beijing for several years, she changed from North Drift to Shanghai Drift and settled in Shanghai. During this period, Ren Huan studied an MBA at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and also worked in a number of companies, she became a family, but she never had children.
When he left in 2021, Ren Huan was the product director of a fintech company with an annual salary of one million.
It was also in that year that the escape when she was young had a different meaning in her heart, "At the age of 40, she will understand the words of many old people, such as raising children and preventing old age, life is a backfeed ..."
Previously, Ren Huan did not know about Alzheimer's disease, and her mother was the first patient she came into contact with.
Everything has been foreshadowed. Ren Huan first noticed the signs of his mother's illness 4 years ago. At that time, Huan Mama had some sense of directional loss, and often took the wrong car when going out. And before, everyone who "walked the road again, my mother remembered." ”
Later, Huan Mama began to remember what had happened recently, the guests who came yesterday, the meals they had eaten at noon, and even the words they had just talked about, all of them had no impression, as if they had erased their memories in their minds.
After feeling that there was a problem, Ren Huan took his mother to consult. The doctor who sat in the clinic asked the old lady: What is the day of the month, what day of the week, which city are you in, and what is the level of education?
This kind of question, Huan Mama can not answer one, 30 points of evaluation, she only scored 15 points.
Doctors give the diagnosis: Alzheimer's disease, moderate.
"I can't accept it, but the most unacceptable thing is probably my dad." Ren Huan said.
In the days that followed, Ren Huan returned to Shanghai to work with mixed feelings, and Huan's mother stayed in Chongqing and was cared for by Huan's father. Every once in a while, Ren Huan would take the two elderly people to Shanghai and let them live with him.
In the past four years, whenever he was free from work, Ren Huan would take his parents to travel. Around Shanghai, they drove to many places, and when they arrived in Beijing last year, Huan's mother recognized the Bird's Nest, which was one of the few moments that surprised Ren Huan.
Ren Huan and his mother were in the Forbidden City
Mom's condition was discovered to be worse in April 2021. It was an ordinary morning, without any warning, "Mom suddenly stopped recognizing me. Ren Huan choked and recalled.
Every day he lived with his parents, Ren Huan would habitually ask his mother who I was and who my father was. When she asked this question again that day, Huan's mother asked Ren Huan, "Are you a sister?" ”
Hearing this, Ren Huan hid in the bathroom and cried, "I have always felt that I will be the last person in this world she will forget." ”
Not long after the incident, Ren Huan submitted an application for resignation to the leader.
"I think the most precious thing for my mother now is time, if she has complete amnesia, dementia, I may ask her to hire a nurse, but now, I want to accompany her more when she still remembers me." 」
If one day she doesn't remember me at all, there is no point in making more money. ”
At the beginning of the Spring Festival in 2022, she filmed her daily life with her mother and uploaded it to the social platform, which quickly attracted the attention of the media and even landed on the hot search list.
What netizens focused on discussing was the eye-catching annual salary and the courage to speak nakedly.
Ren Huan does not like the label of being installed on the body, and she hopes that everyone can shift their focus to "companionship" and let more people pay attention to the Alzheimer's disease group, rather than the million salary.
"It also took me 18 years to earn millions a year."
In the past two years, Ren Huan's most intuitive feeling is that the old lady is not as energetic as before.
Huan Mama is 68 years old this year, after the illness, the corners of her eyes gradually drooped, her lips are crooked, and her eyes are a little sluggish.
When she was young, Huan Ma was very bitter. Ren Huan's grandmother died early, and after her grandfather remarried, she had five children, but she was extremely harsh on Huan's mother. She had to take the children at home, do housework, and occasionally get beaten for not doing well.
Until she fell ill, Huan Mama could still remember the hardships she suffered when she was a teenager, "I have a deep memory of that period." ”
At the age of 9, she was taken to Xinjiang by her relatives and began to study and work. When she was working as a weaver in a factory, she met Huan Dad. After getting married, the two moved from Xinjiang to Chongqing.
Huan's father is a civil servant, and Huan's mother is a procurement company in a hardware company, running business all over the country. After retiring, she still did not rest, opened restaurants, mahjong restaurants, and poured out a lot of small businesses.
Happy mom when I was young
Huan Ma always has a strong and hard work, even in her old age, she still loves to dye a blonde hair and wear fashionable clothes. Watches, bracelets and other ornaments have been worn on her for a long time, and people are dressed up in pearlescent.
At the age of 50, she attended the university of the elderly and worked as a class leader in a dance class. "I used to be such a shrewd and capable person." Ren Huan could not accept the fact that her mother was ill for a long time.
In order to delay the illness, Ren Huan took his mother to do rehabilitation training. Every afternoon, she would play the role of a teacher, teaching her mother to learn arithmetic, English and Chinese.
Addition and subtraction within ten, Huan Ma often gets it wrong, and the pronunciation of English words is often inaccurate. But Huan's mother still rushed to take English class because she "felt foreign".
Ren Huan took her to read the pronunciation of each word carefully, and the two of them burst into laughter from time to time because of the mistake, and the calm time passed day by day.
"She used to chase me to do my homework, now I chase her every day to class and chat. It's as if the roles are swapped, and they're reversed. Ren said with a smile. She seemed quiet and spoke softly, but in middle school, Ren Huan also had rebellion.
Happy Mom is learning
As an only child, Ren Huan has been pampered since childhood. When she was a teenager, due to the strict discipline of her parents, she could not withstand the pressure of family and schoolwork, and chose to sneak away from home. My parents searched for three days and almost called the police. In the end, Ren Huan was found from a classmate's home.
To her surprise, when her parents led them home and closed the door, they were not greeted by counts and scoldings, but hugs, tears and food, "Later I learned that they were afraid that I would run away again." ”
Looking back on this past now, Ren Huan always feels sorry for his parents.
After Huan's mother fell ill, during a trip, Huan's father woke up in the early morning and suddenly found that there was no one around. He searched along the layers of the hotel, and finally found Huan Ma in the lobby.
The reason why Huan Ma ran away was simply to find a toilet.
Since then, Ren Huan has no longer let his parents go out alone, "Usually I take the two of them with me." ”
Happy Mom and Dad
Many Alzheimer's patients, without good care of relatives, will quickly decline in physical fitness, but "with my mother's current state, it is certainly no problem to insist on four or five years, ten years is possible." Ren Huan was optimistic.
In the first two years of diagnosis, every time Huan's mother said the wrong thing, Ren Huan always wanted to correct it, and after a long time, there were more and more places that needed to be corrected, and she let her mother go wrong.
But there was only one thing that Ren Huan could not compromise - she did not allow her mother to forget herself.
Whenever she came to this moment, she would always go out of her way to explain and ask questions until she woke up Huanma's memory.
The saddest time was that no matter how hard Ren Huan tried, he couldn't make his mother remember himself. It was a moment that made her feel powerless.
Ren Huan always felt that there seemed to be a force trying to take away her mother's memory, and she was fighting against this force.
Looking back on the past, the most regrettable thing for Ren Huan is that her mother was hit by a car four years ago and fractured.
At that time, Huan's mother went to the beauty salon for nursing as usual, but was hit by a battery car on the road. She endured the pain and went to the beauty salon until the waiter saw her swollen hand and took her to the hospital to deal with the injury.
When Ren Huan received the call, her mother was about to undergo surgery. The person who informed her was a waiter at the beauty salon.
"I think a big part of the reason why she likes to go to the beauty salon is because the little sisters in the beauty salon often chat with her and say something she loves to hear." Ren Huan felt extremely remorseful.
For four years, although Ren Huan occasionally brought his parents to Shanghai, he did not have much energy to accompany them. "My job is 996, 7*24 hours online... Now to review this matter, I did not give my mother a lot of warmth and security when I needed it most, and I think there will be some regrets. ”
Ren Huan and Mom and Dad
Nowadays, Ren Huan has begun to believe in the saying that "parents are here, not far away".
In her early 20s, she still worked at a state-owned bank in Chongqing, which was an iron rice bowl in the eyes of many people. Ren Huan secretly quit his stable job because he longed for life in a big city.
"At that time, I didn't know where the courage came from, so I thought that the farther away from home, the better." Ren Huan, who broke the iron rice bowl, went to Beijing before informing his parents of his resignation. Unsurprisingly, they were anxious and worried, afraid that she had been wronged outside.
Until Ren Huan entered a foreign bank, the greeting calls from his parents were less. When Ren Huan finished the North Drift and began to drift in Shanghai, she did not discuss with her parents in advance, and her style of doing things has always been to cut first and play later. That's why there is this naked remark.
In order to better take care of his mother, Ren Huan has inquired a lot of information and gradually explored the experience of caring for patients.
The second season of "Can't Forget the Restaurant" finished in Shanghai, and the physical store was retained. In the Spring Festival of 2022, after Ren Huan went to the restaurant to punch in the field, he decided to take his mother to see, "Maybe I can participate in some of their public welfare activities." ”
But this vision did not come into action. After Ren Huan's community was closed due to the epidemic, he could only take his mother for a walk in the community.
Ren Huan and his mother were singing
Another restaurant called "Memory Cafe" was also experienced by Ren Huan himself. There, sick elderly people can work as waiters in cafes, and some volunteers can also be recruited as store managers.
Ren Huan considered that in the future, he could do some projects in this area to find some balance between accompanying his mother and working.
"First-tier cities like Shanghai are also well-known, so the gap in this market is particularly large." She speculated that her future job might be completely changed because of her mother.
Ren Huan is not afraid to change careers, she has taken the national second-level psychological counselor certificate, if she really wants to do work related to Alzheimer's disease, she may be able to bring helpful psychological counseling to patients and their families.
Just a few days ago, Ren Huan experienced another "storm" to help her mother find her memories. One night before this, Huan's mother was going out with her backpack at three o'clock in the morning, and her mouth kept repeating, "I miss my mother, I have to go to my mother." ”
Ren Huan tossed and turned for a long time, and after calming her down to sleep, he hid in the bed and cried quietly.
In the past six months, Huan Mama's memory has often fallen into chaos. In her cognition, she has seen Putin and Trump. Sometimes, even unable to distinguish between TV dramas and reality, they will say that they and Mi Yue are friends, and Huang Xie is a colleague...
Worse still, hallucinations will occur. Huan Mama often felt that someone had come to the house to take her things, so she shouted to hide the things.
Such moments will only accumulate more and more in the days to come. In 2021, Ren Huan took his mother to do the evaluation again, and the score score has dropped from 15 four years ago to 8. Correspondingly, Huan Mama also changed from a moderate alzheimer's disease to a severe patient.
In addition to being sad, Ren Huan felt some satisfaction, "No matter how her mother is sick, as long as people are still there." ”
Someone once saw her video and left a message saying that her mother was also Alzheimer's disease. Ren Huan and the other established contact and discussed ways to take care of patients.
Another eldest sister, the father is paralyzed, the mother is Alzheimer's disease. Ren Huan's father has suffered from cirrhosis for more than ten years. Connecting with similar patients' families is equivalent to the process of hugging and warming up, and getting a little comfort in mutual encouragement.
Ren Huan told the "most people" that if they knew more such family members, they would establish a relevant group, and they hoped that everyone would be each other's example and salvation.
Happy Mom and Happy Dad
In an interview, Ren Huan arranged for her mother to sing in the living room, but after a while, the bedroom door was pushed open, "She can't see me for a while, she will come to me." Ren Huan explained.
In life, Huan Mama still belongs to a semi-self-care state. You can wash yourself when you wake up in the morning, but you can't tell the difference between toothpaste and facial cleanser. You can take a bath at night, but you need someone next to you to guide you to prevent mixing shower gel with shampoo.
Ren Huan spent time with his mother in this overnight relationship.
When she is idle, she loves to look through the past photos, and she also likes to point to the figure in the photo and let her mother identify herself. And usually, Huan Mama will open the crown and wear it.
Ten years ago, in the early spring of a year ago, Ren Huan and his lover took both parents on a trip abroad, when the four elderly people were very healthy, and they spent the happiest time of six people in Taiwan today.
"Even people as shy as my dad danced on the beach in Taiwan." Ren Huan sighed.
Ren Huan's family of six
But nothing goes back to the past.
In recent years, Ren Huan's crying has become frequent. Once, after Huan Mama woke up, she heard that she did not recognize her daughter, so she cried and apologized to her in Chongqing dialect, "I didn't mean it, I told you, I always had you in my heart, not intentionally." ”
At the mention of this, Ren Huan sobbed again.
"From that time on, I felt that it didn't matter if she didn't remember me occasionally, as long as I could think of it at the end."
But one day, Huan Mama will not remember it again.
*Images courtesy of respondents
The above is the content of the "most people" interview, and it may not be reproduced or embezzled without permission