Eugenia Zukerman: The acclaimed flutist and broadcast journalist on keeping her sense of humor and dignity in the face of Alzheimer’s – CBS News

Eugenia Zukerman is an internationally acclaimed flutist.  (“I in fact fell in love with it. It became my buddy. It became my constant accomplice,” she acknowledged of the flute.) And, if she appears to be like to be to be like familiar, it would possibly possibly well well devoted be on yarn of she spent extra than 20 years bringing “Sunday Morning” viewers rankings of stories about music and the humanities, interviewing such artists as Placido Domingo, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Paul McCartney.

“I desired to be a one that will possibly well well elevate them into that world,” Zukerman acknowledged, “let of us know the design handsome the music is.”

And she didn’t disquieted away from raising shapely issues, with artists adore singer-songwriter Judy Collins, who, in 1999, she asked, “You labored onerous, and you drank onerous?”

“I drank onerous, I partied onerous,” Collins acknowledged. “I in actuality own been ready to protect away from a drink a day [at] a time for 20 years now.”

Correspondent Rita Braver asked Zukerman, “Attain you take into accout that alternate with her?”

“I absolutely attain, on yarn of she used to be a terminate buddy,” She spoke back. “She’s somebody who used to be very open and talked about difficulties in her lifestyles very openly.”

And on the present time, or no longer it is Zukerman who’s talking out about the difficulties in her get lifestyles.  “I get I was in denial, and the denial used to be for the time being priceless.  What happens if I will be succesful to no longer play the flute? What’s going to happen to me?”

What used to be going on used to be that she used to be experiencing the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. It used to be her daughters, Arianna and Natalia, who started the see a prognosis. 

“It wasn’t devoted that she forgot,” acknowledged Arianna. “It had been adore she’d in no design heard the sage earlier than. And things adore that had been regarding.”

“I devoted acknowledged, ‘Mother, is there one thing going on?'” acknowledged Natalia. “‘It is a long way going to very properly be the leisure. Why manufacture no longer we prance figure it out?’ And she in fact devoted used to be relieved.”

And two years in the past, when Zukerman in fact bought the prognosis confirming that her memory in fact is fading, she didn’t despair: “I went house with Natalia. We had been laughing on the subway as we always had been, and I sat down at my desk and devoted looked on the wall for a whereas. And then, I manufacture no longer know why, I picked up a portion of paper and a pen and I started writing.”

Writing what would turn actual into a new book of poems describing her experiences with Alzheimer’s, “Like Falling Through a Cloud: A Lyrical Memoir of Coping With Forgetfulness, Confusion, and a Dreaded Diagnosis” (East Quit Press).

What’s that observe?

It is a long way so absurd.

It is a long way a region the place I own to prance on the present time

however I will be succesful to no longer find my take care of book

regardless of the place I take into consideration

Please manufacture no longer let this be my contaminated fate,

to fail to recollect appointments and what they’re for.

Zukerman’s husband of nine years, Dick Novik, says her memory comes and goes. When she forgets a observe, he’s going to supply it. “It is a long way a humorous new feature for me,” he acknowledged.

Living proof: Zukerman played one of her accepted pieces for Braver by heart, however then, when asked who the composer used to be, she answered, “The composer used to be … devoted a second …”

She looked over to her husband, who spoke back, “Debussy.”

And when she currently seemed as visitor of honor on the Alzheimer’s Association Gala in Unusual York, she spoke to the viewers: “I am in misfortune of your generosity and your reduction in making this depraved, no longer easy … ”

“Illness,” acknowledged Novik.

“That’s my husband,” she acknowledged. “Sure, I in actuality own effort announcing ‘disease.'”

Natalia Zukerman suggested Braver, “She’s been anxious to most recent at all these Alzheimer’s Association advantages and stuff: ‘What if I fail to recollect what I’m doing?’ I’m adore, ‘That’s pretty powerful why you are there!'”

And as Eugenia Zukerman currently eminent her 75th birthday surrounded by family and guests, she has kept her sense of humor, and her dignity.

Braver acknowledged, “It does seem adore you gentle utilize pleasure in so many things?”

“Oh, there is so powerful to utilize pleasure in,” Zukerman acknowledged. “Here I am in this handsome wooded region, and the animals that I adore, and the of us in this region are inconceivable. I’m lucky.  I believe very lucky.”

READ AN EXCERPT:  Eugenia Zukerman’s “Like Falling Through a Cloud”

     

For additional recordsdata:

• “Like Falling Through a Cloud: A Lyrical Memoir of Coping With Forgetfulness, Confusion, and a Dreaded Diagnosis” by Eugenia Zukerman (East Quit Press), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio codecs, accessible via Amazon
• eugeniazukerman.com
• Alzheimer’s Association

     

Yarn produced by Mary Raffalli.