(vehicles humming by) (vehicles humming by continues) (vehicles humming by continues) (electronic noises) (electronic noises continues) (electronic humming) - [Maria] Show Vicki how you've been sitting on the couch and telling me (indistinct).

- [Voice-Over] So I have some things I would like to say.

My name is Joyce Speegle.

At one point in my life, I did many things.

I was a wife, a mother, a respiratory therapist, gas station attendant, a pastor.

I tell you this, just so you'll know I still do have a brain.

No matter what anybody says, I can hear it and I can feel it in my mind.

(footsteps crunching on walk) If that changes, I'll tell ya.

(light piano music) (light piano music continues) - [Vicki] This is my mother, Joyce.

After she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's she asked me to make a film about what she was going through because she wanted it to somehow help others.

- It's a bad thing and at the same time (chuckling), it's a good thing because I'm a better woman, I believe, than I ever was and not only that, I know that there is a God and I have asked him to give me, give me, to give me... - [Vicki] My first memory of my mother is not a picture, or a sound, but a feeling, asleep in her lap at the kitchen table her voice humming against my cheek as she talked with my dad and their friends.

Mom's parents didn't approve of dad.

- We asked my mom if he could marry me, and she said, "Absolutely, no."

And so I was a rebel, you know what I mean?

- A rebel?

- Rebel.

Because when she said that I thought that was the worst thing she shouldn't have said that.

(light piano music) - [Vicki] In 1968, at just 21, she's married with three kids working hard to keep up appearances, cleaning house, cooking mashed potatoes and meatloaf, still smothering the secret.

She had a wicked sense of humor.

She liked to chase us around the house with the turkey on Thanksgiving, sometimes going out for sundaes and then stopping in the cemetery for a game of tag.

There was rarely money for vacations, but she'd check us into a cheap motel so we could swim and we thought that was the best vacation ever.

But at times, I had the sense that part of her wasn't present of dreams unpursued, things buried.

(children chattering in background) By the time she turns 25 she's a divorced single parent working hard to make ends meet.

Cleaning as a housekeeper at the hospital, pumping gas part-time, and finding the courage to finally come out.

(birds chirping) (dog barking) (people chuckling) - We are gathered this day- (baby squealing) To welcome you into your family.

- [Vicki] This is mom's partner, Maria.

- And to bless you before the world.

- [Vicki] My brother, Keith, asked them to perform the blessing for their new granddaughter, Hayden.

- [Maria] We place the oil of gladness on your hands.

(baby squealing) May your hands always find fulfilling work to do, on your mouth, may you always have laughter and good words, and on your heart, may you find love and happiness.

Hayden, may God bless you with wisdom, grace, joy, and peace, throughout your life.

Amen.

- Amen.

- [Keith] Thank you mom.

- [Vicki] It was little things at first mom was afraid to hold her granddaughter.

The Alzheimer's seemed to be affecting her sense of balance.

She had trouble finding her words and then one day- (phone ringing) - [Joyce] Did Maria tell you the cops picked me up?

- [Vicki] Yep, for drunk and disorderly?

(both laughing) Did she ask you if you had been drinking?

- [Joyce] Right, that was the first thing they said, and I said, "No," I said, "I haven't been drinking," and I said, "I have Alzheimer's and I'm a runner," and I said, "I'm almost home."

(birds chirping) - Here, touch right here, yeah, show grandma.

Grandma, grandma touch right here, put your fingers right there.

Oh and say, good girl, grandma.

(light piano music) (light piano music continues) The other foot, honey.

- [Vicki] Mom's granddaughter, Hayden, grew older.

Time with her was precious because they lived so far apart.

- Come on.

Come on Grandma.

- But with each visit I noticed a far more heartbreaking distance growing between them.

- [Vicki ] They're not dirty honey, that's just the color they are.

They're not dirty, I promise you.

(Hayden upset) They're just brown and they're fuzzy, but they're not dirty.

(Joyce upset) (Hayden upset) Okay, do you want 'em off?

- Yes.

- [Vicki] It's okay, honey, it's all right, granny's okay.

(Hayden sniffling) You ready to go home and watch a movie?

Okay.

(Hayden sniffling) Wanna go home and watch a movie with the baby?

- Yeah.

- [Maria] She was asking about you, huh?

(Hayden upset) You said I wanna get in the car with Grandma Joyce.

- [Joyce] I'm okay, honey babe, I'm okay.

- I need this, draw, granny draw, (indistinct) to draw.

- Should I do this?

- Um-hm.

- Okay, okay.

So (indistinct).

Over here?

- Um-hm.

- Okay.

- [Hayden] Draw a H. - H?

- A "H," yeah.

- [Joyce] Where?

- [Hayden] Look, like that.

- [Joyce] This one?

- [Hayden] Draw a "H." - H?

- Draw a "H" um-hm.

- [Joyce] Where's the H?

(marker tapping on page) - This?

- Um-hm.

(paper crinkling) Stick your hand in there, stick your hand in there.

- Okay, okay.

- [Hayden] This hand.

- [Vicki] This is from mom's prayer journal.

- [Voice-Over] "I find it better to try to laugh than to cry."

(Hayden squealing) "I don't wanna just sit around and not do anything.

There are times when I can't even get my clothes on and I scream and I scream at God.

Even though I get a little mad at him I also know he is with me."

- She's acting like I strangled her.

(vehicles humming by) - [Vicki] It's going.

(vehicles humming by) (light piano music) - [Maria] Oh fine, for her you act normal, thanks!

(Joyce laughing) - This is normal?

- [Maria] Well, as close as it can get.

- Help me.

(Vicki chuckling) - [Maria] Do a little dance.

Thank you.

(all laughing) Oh get her feet, get her feet.

(light piano music) (all laughing) Oh my!

Thank you.

- [Vicki] It wasn't till I was in my 30s that I discovered the woman who watched us, when mom worked, was her first partner.

After JoAnn, she began and ended several relationships in her search for that one person.

It was hard for me to understand it all then.

Now I know how tough it must have been for her, a gay single parent trying to raise three kids in the '70s.

Mom struggled in her romantic relationships, but her love for God was unwavering.

Mom wanted to create a place where no one was forced to choose between who they were and what they believed so she started seminary studies and by 1985 she was ordained pastor of Akron Metro Christian Church.

- [Vicki] How does your church fit into the society there?

Do you get a lot of flack from the community, from the heterosexual community?

- No.

- No?

- As a matter of fact we are very well-respected.

We belong to what's called the Akron Area Association of Churches and they know that the main orientation of our church, not the only, anybody's welcome in our church it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation is, or color, or creed, or anything else, so we're very well-respected actually.

- [Vicki] One member would show up barefoot and smelling so badly it was hard to sit next to him, but every time he came through the door mom would throw her arms around him, give him a big hug.

Rich, poor, gay, straight, transgender, everyone was welcome.

- [Vicki] Where do you 10 years from now, see homosexuals in America?

- I hate the word, the title homosexual, that label.

- Oh, you do, why?

- Oh, I hate it because it says, homo-sexual, and so when people look at that, it's like that's all we are is these sexual beings.

- [Vicki] Well, what do you prefer?

- I just prefer to be me, I don't like any labels, but unfortunately that's what this world runs by, you have to have some kind of a label.

- [Vicki] She becomes a writer for the "Akron Beacon Journal" and makes appearances on TV and radio.

- [Joyce] Have you stopped to think that you are being watched?

Those who know us to be Christians oftentimes watch us closely to see what is so different about us, or if we truly live what we claim to believe.

This day, let Christ be seen and heard in you.

This is Joyce Speegle from Akron Metropolitan Christian Church and WAKR.

- Blow.

- Just lean over and blow.

- [Joyce] Okay.

(Joyce blowing) - Oh, good job!

- Good job!

- One more.

- Hayden, you get the rest.

(Hayden blowing) Try harder.

- Yeah.

(both blowing) (Keith laughing) - Okay, both of you have to do it together.

One- - Okay.

- Two, three, blow.

(both blowing) - Yay!

- Yay, you helped grandma.

- [Vicki] Prayer journal.

- [Voice-Over] "God, are you ever silent?

Sometimes I feel like I'm just out here in this chasm, just floating.

Why does it seem so hard to get back to the relationship I once had with you?

I must hang on to the belief that your love and forgiveness apply still.

Help me, Holy Spirit, to hear your voice."

(water gushing) "I feel like you've forgotten all about me."

- Ouch!

- Oh, you okay?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Okay, step back and get your hair wet.

- [Joyce] All right.

- [Vicki] Okay, come on in.

Oh, mama, mama, stay right there, stay there.

- [Joyce] What?

What?

- [Vicki] I think you're peeing.

It's okay.

Okay, sit back down.

- (sighing) Sorry.

- It's okay, Ma.

- I didn't know.

- It's all right, I know you didn't.

Here we go.

(light piano music) (light piano music continues) (cars on the street) (utensil clunking on dish) Mom needed constant help now.

We were able to get her a caregiver, but she began asking us to place her in a home.

Mama, you're not crazy.

- Yes, I am, yes I am.

- [Vicki] Even the doctor said you're not crazy, it's, you have Alzheimer's and the Alzheimer's affects you in certain ways, that's far different from being crazy.

- Then why do I... - [Vicki] Why do you what?

(Joyce sniffing) - I don't know why God let me do me this?

(Joyce sniffing) I don't know what I did to... (Joyce sniffing) - [Vicki] I don't think you did anything, mama.

(Joyce sniffing) (Joyce crying) - I just can't do...

I can't do... (Joyce crying) (Joyce crying) - [Vicki] Mama.

(Joyce crying) Listen to me though, we don't expect you to be perfect and we, you're not messing up, to us.

(Joyce sniffing) - [Joyce] Yes, but I am.

- [Vicki] But you can't, it's your Alzheimer's mama.

- [Joyce] I know that, I know that!

- [Vicki] You are not a burden to us.

- [Joyce] I didn't say that.

(sniffing) (light piano music) (feet thumping on floor) (light piano music continues) (feet thumping on floor continues) - [Vicki] One day mom fell and broke some ribs.

Maria rushed her to the hospital, but after the nurses gave mom some pain medication she started hallucinating.

Her blood pressure dropped.

She told me later she felt like she was going to die.

Mom looked at Maria and said, "You know, you are so good to me I should really marry you someday."

Maria cried.

She thought it was just the drugs talking that mom wouldn't remember, but mom did remember.

They bought their rings in a kiosk at the mall and married six months later.

Mom started seeing bugs everywhere.

When Maria and I tried to convince her that there were none it just upset her more.

She wanted us to believe her.

Then the doctor explained that we should just go along with it, but she kept asking to go into a home.

- What I was, was thinking that, that maybe, I would just stay there.

- Right, I get it, but I would wanna visit you.

- Um-hm.

- And I could probably only do that a couple times a week, I don't know, on weekends maybe.

Wouldn't you miss me?

- I would, if it, but I know that's what I have to do.

- Yeah, you think so?

I'm very glad that you're talking about what you need.

That makes me happy.

- Um-hm.

- Okay.

I love you.

- I love you.

(birds chirping) - [Vicki] Your favorite funny story from mom's childhood... - It's got to be, oh, there are so many, that's hard, but it's got to be the communion dress.

Other little girls look in the mirror and say, "Oh, I know what this dress needs, it needs a matching purse and some gloves."

And Joyce looked in the mirror and said, "I know what this dress needs, a gun belt," right?

- Yes.

- And then you put your six shooters and your gun belt around your communion dress.

- Yep.

- And I can only imagine your mother saying, "Oh my god, Bob, look what your daughter did, see what you can do about that, she can't go to church like that."

- Yeah.

- So what did your dad do?

- He said, um, "Honey, listen, if, if I give you some, some, some"... - Candy?

- "Some candy, will, will you sit, sit down?

"- - And take the gun belt off?

- "And take the," yeah.

- For church?

- Yeah, right.

- Uh-huh.

And what did you say?

- I said, "Okay."

(Maria laughing) - [Vicki] Somewhere there's a photo of mom in her gun belt communion gown, but no one in the family seems to know where and this is the closest I've come to finding it.

I like to imagine just before this mom dropping her cap guns and tearing into a chocolate bar.

At Sunday school, while all the other little girls played at being nuns, mom liked to play at being the pastor.

She always knew who she was.

(vehicle motor humming) My brother, Herb, flew home from Iraq and helped Maria move mom into an Alzheimer's facility so my next visit home was hard seeing her there.

- That's good.

- In a box of her things I found a photo album with letters that some of her parishioners wrote to her.

- "To Reverend Speegle, who is my pastor, my teacher, my confidant, my friend, and my inspirer."

- [Person] "You were there for me when I thought my life was over.

When my spouse took her clothes and left, you picked me up to go to church and we found her sitting on the steps."

- [Person 2] "You taught me the gift of friendship, how important it is to have a friend, but also how important it is to be a friend."

- [Person 3] "The thing I'm most grateful for is whatever part you played in my mother and my daughter getting back together.

I don't know what you said, or did, but whatever it was, it's reunited my family."

- [Person 4] "You always have time to listen.

You show me you have faith in me even when I don't."

- [Person 5] "You have helped to make my God alive for me."

- [Person 6] "I can't thank him enough for the day I opened the church door and there you were."

- [Person 7] "Your friend, always, Donald."

- [Person 8] "Love, Pat."

- [Person 9] "Love, Joe."

- "For all of this and so much more, I am thankful to know you.

Love, Lois."

- I did that?

- Yes, you did that when you were a pastor.

- Wow.

- Wow, that's right, that's right.

You were a good pastor, Joyce.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

(light piano music) - [Vicki] I remember mom talking in her sleep when I was a kid.

She'd be completely out, but I could have an entire conversation with her like we were total strangers.

Maria called me one day, said she had a funny story.

Mom was talking in her sleep and Maria asked her all kinds of questions, how many kids she had, what kind of work she did, and then she asked mom if she could marry her.

Mom giggled like a schoolgirl, "But I just met you!"

When mom talked in her sleep she had no trouble at all finding her words.

She spoke as easily as she did before the Alzheimer's.

How strange that the same brain that defeated her during the day became whole again in the night, allowed her to be what she used to be.

(birds chirping) - [Voice-Over] "You paid the price for my ransom and therefore have given me the right to enter your most holy presence.

You are my hiding place and my rock.

Your tender mercies follow me no matter what I do, or wherever I go."

(light piano music) (birds chirping) (light piano music continues) (birds chirping continues) (light piano music continues) (light piano music continues) (light piano music continues) (light piano music continues) (no audio)