The term "long goodbye" is often used to describe The World Goodbye to Alzheimer's Patients and the Goodbyes of Their Loved Ones and Friends.
Stills from the Japanese movie The Long Farewell. Adapted from the novel of the same name, the film shows a father with Alzheimer's disease spending time with his wife and daughter.
In fact, this comes from a public statement about Alzheimer's disease by former First Lady Nancy Reagan. Ronald Reagan, who was the 40th president of the United States, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in his later years. In November 1994, Reagan wrote a handwritten letter to the United States declaring, "I know I am heading toward the twilight of my life's journey. Reagan and his family fought hard against Alzheimer's disease for 10 years until June 2004, when Reagan died of pneumonia at home.
Wedding photo of the Reagans.
Nancy Reagan said: "The family helplessly watched their loved ones slowly lose the memory of everything around them, forget people, forget places, forget everything, like a long goodbye." 」 Reagan's youngest daughter, Patti Davis, chronicles her father's last decade is also named after it.
The Chinese translation of Patti Davis's "The Long Farewell", the left is the 2006 edition of CITIC Publishing House, and the right is the 2021 edition of Tiandi Publishing House.
Patti Davis, who has been denounced as a "rebel of the family," dropped out of school and lived with a rock musician for some time, often "at war" with her family. During Reagan's two terms, Patti often made sensational news. She wrote books expressing her unique views on her parents, publicly gave speeches against her father's political views, took nude photos for Playboy... Until her father's illness made her come home again.
Patti Davis, formerly known as Patricia Ann Reagan Greer, reagan and Nancy Reagan's only daughter.
One might think that such a rebellious daughter had experienced an unhappy family life. On the contrary, the Reagans were very much in love with each other and gave their children full companionship. However, "the family has a difficult scripture", the author once complained that his parents loved each other and ignored him, confessed that he and his sister had long fought each other, jealous of each other, and when Reagan became president, she was full of anger at the whole country that "stole her father". Coupled with her unique historical and political background, she drifted away from her family.
Reagan was with his wife and children.
Reagan's illness pressed the "switch" of his daughter's return to the family. When the author realized that his father would die of Alzheimer's disease, he finally began to face his heart. In the face of her own and her father's death, she recalled the "first lesson of death" that her father taught her: when she was a child, her father often took himself on a horse, and when she was 10 years old, the horse died of illness, but his father did not cry, he said: "I am recalling all the wonderful times I spent with it." This makes the author understand that one can transcend death with precious memories.
"The Long Goodbye" is presented in the form of a diary, and the author reminisces fondly of the memories he spent with his father: his father took himself on a horse, helped him assemble the heart model needed for the science class project, and accompanied himself to hold a funeral for his fish when it died.
Patty Davis as a child was with his father.
In reality, she lives closer and closer to her parents. She gave her father a copy of a horse album as a Christmas present, talked to him about how she was learning to skate, and said "I love you" to him. Patti Davis said: "The most touching and shocking moment of my life was in 1995 when my mother and I were sorting through my father's study and found a letter written to me in his drawer. Judging by the date on the letter, it can be judged that my father wrote it before I published the 'damn' book slandering the White House and parents, and the father's self-blame and sadness can be seen in the letter. The last words of the letter are 'Please don't take me and your mother away from your memory because we miss you and love you like that.' Come back, Father's arms will always wait for your return! ”
The author not only regains his love for his father, but also becomes more intimate with other family members. She accompanied her mother to a party, listened to her mother share the feelings of her friend's death, and talked about her father's illness together. She and her sister who suffered from melanoma were freed from their previous suspicions, often making long-distance phone calls to each other to talk about love, lamenting her brother's growth and responsibility, and uniting with her brothers and sisters as never before.
Reagan's family portrait, front row right is Nancy. In the back row, from left to right, are daughter Maureen, adopted son Michael and wife, young daughter Patty, and young son Ronald.
In this long goodbye, Patti Davis finally understood: "Family members are a bunch of 'ragtag' who are difficult to manage, but they are subject to connections that even they themselves cannot fully understand." There are always people who drop the chain and mess up the whole thing, and although they are separated and have their own things to deal with, that connection is always there, connecting us to each other. "He is a majestic president to the world; to me, he will always be a loving father."
Patty Davis's The Long Goodbye is not so much a record of the end of a politician's life and a daughter's reconciliation with her family and self as a journey through the hearts of an ordinary Alzheimer's patient and his family. It wasn't just the Reagan family that struggled with Alzheimer's disease. According to the 2019 Global Health Estimates Report released by the World Health Organization in 2020, Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia alone have ranked among the top ten causes of death in the world in the past 20 years. The World Alzheimer's Disease 2018 Report shows that every 3 seconds, there is a new person with dementia in the world.
In the TV series "All Is Well", Su Daqiang suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and his memory gradually declined.
Nowadays, China is "running" into an aging society. There is no doubt that in the future, more families will have to face the "long goodbye" brought about by Alzheimer's disease. This is a severe physical and mental test for patients and their families. Living with the disease, reconciling with death, and saying goodbye to relatives not only requires a certain amount of financial ability, but also a strong spiritual support.
Stills from the Japanese movie The Long Farewell. After his illness, his father still remembers that the whole family wore birthday hats when celebrating his birthday.
From the separation and aggregation of the Reagan family, we can better appreciate how precious it is that whether it is the parents' words and deeds to the children or the children's feedback to the parents, whether they put themselves in the perspective of "farewell" or "farewell", respecting the old and loving the young, loving the family and taking care of the family is so important, we should express love and support to the family in the seemingly inconspicuous and ordinary daily life, this is because, in the pain, the past reunion and joy, the current companionship and acceptance, the gratitude and cherishing of the family, It is the source of strength that supports a family to sail to the calm of the wind and waves; it is also because no matter how we avoid it, we will face a farewell, and only by embracing it vigorously can we have no regrets and no regrets in the end of the day.
Reporter/Tang Feng
Editor/Feng Chao