A Thank You to Glen Campbell From Me and My Mom

Glen Campbell performing at an Alzheimer’s Association event.

CREDIT: Getty Images

Glen Campbell, who was both a pop music icon (“Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”) and a movie star (True Grit, Any Which Way You Can) died today at 81. I love many of his songs and acting performances. But he’ll always have my thanks for a completely different reason.

Campbell died of Alzheimer’s. The same thing happened to my mother, at 91, almost exactly two years ago. Of all the things that are tough about that disease–and it’s tough in almost every way–one of the worst is that you can’t necessarily talk to someone who has it about what’s happening to them.

At least, that’s how it was with us. Early in her illness, my sister and I colluded to drag my mother to a memory doctor for evaluation. Sparing everyone’s feelings, the doctor pronounced her “borderline,” but recommended she begin taking Alzheimer’s meds. Thus began a period of denial that lasted for years–until well after I could ask her what the experience was like or tell her how awful it was to be losing her in slow motion. And so, we who had discussed just about everything, never talked about Alzheimer’s, or how much she was forgetting, or that the disease would eventually kill her.

So I was blown away by the raw courage Glen Campbell brought to his illness. When he was diagnosed in 2011, he didn’t hide. On the contrary, he went on tour and performed every night even when he wasn’t quite sure where he was. It was supposed to be a five-week tour but it grew into 15 months, with Campbell losing ground along the way. At the beginning, he played guitar easily but sometimes forgot lyrics. By his final performance, in Napa, California, he was struggling to play the guitar as well.

Throughout the tour, Campbell let fans know what he was up against. At the time, his wife Kimberly Woolen told People magazine that they wanted the audience to understand what was going on if and when his disorientation became apparent while he was onstage. But they both also believed it was an opportunity to raise awareness and push for increased Alzheimer’s research funding.

They brought a documentary crew along with them for the entire tour. The title of the documentary, I’ll Be Me, comes from a scene at the start of the film when Campbell fails to recognize home movies of himself. The movie is unflinching, recording, for example, that Campbell winds up urinating in a waste basket on tour because he can’t find the bathroom.

‘I’m not gonna miss you.’

I have a confession: I’ve drawn these details from reviews of the film because I’ve never been able to watch it myself. My mother’s illness, and losing her, is still too painful. Maybe it always will be.

But I did just barely bring myself to watch the video of one of the last songs Campbell wrote, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” released on the I’ll Be Me soundtrack. It was the 2015 Grammy winner for Best Country Song. Addressed to his wife, his voice still beautifully melodious, the lyrics are a harshly truthful description of what Alzheimer’s was like for him from the inside:

You’re the last person I will love
You’re the last face I will recall
And best of all, I’m not gonna miss you.

What would Mom have said if we’d ever managed to have an honest conversation about her disease? Probably that she’d had a great life, full of love and joy and adventure, and that she could face its end without regrets. Almost certainly that at a certain point, a diminished life was worse than no life at all. But at the same time, that she was reluctant to abandon the people who loved and needed her.

I think that because of the way she died: No longer able to walk, communicate, or feed herself, she began resisting when others tried to feed her. Still, she lingered until my stepfather, the love of her life for more than 30 years, acknowledged that he was ready to say goodbye.

Everything I’ve written here about what my Mom might have said is pure guesswork. Campbell’s family doesn’t have to guess. It’s one last gift of creativity and honesty from a man who gave the world many over the years. I’ll always be grateful.