Dignity in store over Alzheimer’s
HAVE to say, the first time I was reduced to tears by Sainsbury’s was when, following a long, hard, stressful day, I reached the checkout with a full trolley of goods and realised I’d left my purse somewhere.
The second time was reading Doron Salomon’s tweets about his mum, a proud Sainsbury’s employee.
In her mid-50s, Mrs Salomon was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. At that point many employers would have searched for excuses to terminate her employment.
Instead, management at the Sainsbury’s store in North London “made adjustments” so she could carry on with her job picking goods for online deliveries. Last Saturday was Doron’s mum’s final day at work, a sad occasion, which prompted Doron to take to Twitter to praise the way the supermarket giant had looked after her.
“Sainsbury’s,” he wrote, “have seen my mum deteriorate to the point that every day for the last year or so she has gone into the store confused, as if she’d never been there before.
“They have always stood by her, going above and beyond to make sure she’s happy and feeling valued.”
Towards the end of her employment, Mrs Salomon’s job was to clean the storage boxes, which, to his mum, Doron says “became the most important job in the world”. It’s a touching tale whether dementia has put its cold claw on your shoulder or not.
As I said, it made me cry, because it’s almost a carbon copy of the amazing lengths my mum’s bosses went to, to keep her in work, despite the fact that early onset Alzheimer’s was robbing her of who she was.
She worked in Ocky White, a local, family-run department store in Pembrokeshire.
She loved the job so much, she almost skipped through the doors each day. With her huge smile and friendly chatter, she could sell bikinis to Eskimos if she’d had to.
And then it started to change. She’d often phone me in her lunch break. “Where are you Mum?” I’d ask. “In china,” she’d reply, her voice distant and confused – or sometimes, “I don’t know... in underwear, I think”.
My brothers, dad and me found it comical at first. She was in her 50s, so alarm bells didn’t ring. As time went on she’d phone me crying to tell me she couldn’t count any more, that she was finding it hard to use the till.
When I went home to Wales, the house wasn’t as orderly as usual. She’d cry when people she knew stopped her on the street or in the supermarket, because she didn’t know who they were.
Her GP had prescribed antidepressants, which put us on the wrong trail. And all the while, with all her mistakes, the White family kept her on.
They gave her a job, billed as a promotion, which meant she wouldn’t have to use the till. They gave her a reason to get up, to go out, to live.
When she died, her beloved boss was one of the main speakers at her funeral. She would have been beyond proud.
Thank you Jeremy White – you are forever be my hero.
To learn more about what it’s like to live with dementia, go to dementiafriends.org.uk.