My Mom Has Alzheimer's. Coloring Is the One Thing She Still Recognizes.
The table where recognition still lives. May 2026.
My mother has Alzheimer's. She is seventy-three years old, and some days she does not know my name. She looks at me with the polite confusion of a stranger who has forgotten why they came to a party. She asks where her mother is — her mother who died in 1998. She tells me the same story three times in one visit, and each time she tells it, she believes it is the first time.
I have learned not to correct her. I have learned to say "Tell me more" instead of "You already told me." I have learned that love, in the presence of dementia, is an act of translation — of hearing what she means instead of what she says, of meeting her where she is instead of dragging her back to where she used to be.
But I am still human. I still want her to know me. I still want something — anything — that feels like the connection we used to have, before the disease took her memories and left me with a person who looks like my mother but sometimes feels like a stranger wearing her face.
I tried music. She used to play piano — Chopin, Debussy, songs she learned as a girl. Now she sits at the keyboard and presses one key at a time, confused by the instrument that used to be an extension of her hands. I tried photo albums. She recognizes the faces but not the stories, and the gap between what she sees and what she remembers makes her anxious. I tried cooking together, the thing we did every Sunday for thirty years. She forgets the steps. She burns the onions. She cries and says she's sorry, and I hold her and tell her it's okay even though nothing about this is okay.
My mother taught piano lessons in our living room. I was twelve, supposed to be doing homework at the kitchen table, but I listened to her instead — the patience in her voice, the way she guided small fingers across keys, the smile when a student finally got it right. "Music is memory you can hold," she told me once. I didn't understand what she meant until now, when I watch her forget the keys and remember only the feeling of wanting to play.
The Coloring Book
I found the book by accident. I was cleaning out her closet — a task that feels like archaeology, like excavating the layers of a person who is still alive but somehow already gone — and I found a box of her old teaching supplies. Flash cards. Sheet music. And a coloring book, barely used, from a craft fair in 1995. Simple animal illustrations. A rabbit. A kitten. A sleeping puppy.
I don't know why I kept it. I don't know why, on my next visit, I put it on her table with a set of colored pencils. Maybe I was desperate. Maybe I had run out of things to try. Maybe some part of me remembered that before she was a pianist, before she was a teacher, before she was my mother, she was a girl who liked to color.
She picked up the pencil without being asked. She turned to a page with a sleeping cat — a simple design, bold lines, nothing that required precision or memory or the ability to follow complex instructions. She colored the cat orange. She colored the blanket blue. She did not go outside the lines. Her hand, which shook when she tried to sign her name, was steady.
She looked up at me and smiled — not the confused smile of someone trying to place a face, but the real smile, the one I hadn't seen in two years. "I like this one," she said. "Can I do another?"
She colored for an hour. She colored three pages. She did not ask where her mother was. She did not tell me the same story three times. She was present — fully, completely present — in a way I had almost forgotten was possible.
The Recognition
That was six months ago. I have bought her twelve coloring books since then. I have learned which ones work and which ones don't. Intricate designs frustrate her — she can't follow the patterns, and the frustration makes her agitated. Abstract pages confuse her — she doesn't know what she's supposed to be coloring. But familiar things — animals, flowers, simple landscapes — she recognizes those. She knows what a cat is. She knows what a rose is. She knows the feeling of filling a space with color, even if she doesn't know my name.
The nurses at her facility have noticed. They tell me she is calmer on days when she colors. Less anxious. Less prone to wandering. One nurse, a young woman named Maria who has worked with dementia patients for ten years, told me, "I've never seen anything like it. It's like the coloring book opens a door that Alzheimer's closed."
I don't know if that's true. I don't know if coloring is therapeutic or if it's just distraction, if it's healing or just habit. I don't know if the science supports what I'm seeing, and I don't particularly care. What I know is this: when my mother has a pencil in her hand and a page in front of her, she is my mother again. Not the version with all her memories intact — that person is gone, and I have grieved her — but a version who is peaceful, who is engaged, who is happy in a way that doesn't require her to remember anything at all.
The Books That Reach Her
I have tried dozens of coloring books. These are the three that work — the ones she reaches for, the ones that don't frustrate her, the ones that give us back the time Alzheimer's keeps trying to steal.
My First Cute and Cozy Baby Animals
$9.99This is the book she reaches for most often. Gentle animal illustrations — kittens, puppies, bunnies — with bold, simple lines that don't require precision. She had a cat named Whiskers when she was a girl, and every time she colors a cat page, she tells me about him. It's the same story every time, and I listen like it's the first time, because for her, it is. The familiarity of the animals triggers something the disease hasn't taken yet.
View on Amazon →
The Blob Drawing Book
$9.99On her worst days — the days when she can't follow any instructions, when she gets agitated by complex images — this is the book that still works. Simple shapes that become characters. No wrong way to do it. She colors a blob and it becomes a dog, and she laughs like she's surprised by her own creation. The simplicity is the point. There are no rules to forget, no patterns to follow, no failure possible. Just color and shape and the joy of making something appear.
View on Amazon →
USA Cozy Places to Go
$7.99My mother traveled with my father before he died — road trips through New England, weekends in the Berkshires, summers on Cape Cod. The landmarks in this book — lighthouses, covered bridges, main streets — trigger memories that Alzheimer's hasn't erased yet. She colored a lighthouse last month and told me about a trip to Maine in 1976, details I had never heard before. I recorded her on my phone. I play it back when I miss her, which is every day.
View on Amazon →My mother called me on a Tuesday to tell me she'd started painting again. Watercolors, something she hadn't done since college. "I forgot how much I loved it," she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice — the same smile I hear now, twenty-four years later, when she finishes coloring a page and holds it up for me to see. Some things survive. Not the memories, maybe. But the feeling. The feeling survives.
What I Want You to Know
If you are reading this because someone you love has Alzheimer's — if you are standing in a store aisle or scrolling through Amazon at two in the morning, desperate for something that will reach them — I want you to know that I have been where you are. I have tried everything. I have cried in parking lots and doctor's offices and the hallway outside her room. I have watched the person I love disappear piece by piece, and I have learned that the only way through is to love who is here, not mourn who is gone.
A coloring book will not cure Alzheimer's. It will not bring back their memories or restore their personality or fix the thing that is breaking inside their brain. But it might give you an hour. It might give you a smile that is real, a moment of presence, a page you can hold up and say, "She made this." It might give you something to do together that doesn't require conversation or explanation or the painful work of pretending everything is normal.
My mother colored a rabbit yesterday. She colored it purple, which is not a color rabbits come in, and she was so proud of it that she carried it around the facility showing it to everyone. "Look what I made," she said, to nurses who had never seen her smile, to other residents who didn't know what they were looking at, to me — her daughter, who she may or may not have recognized, but who she knew was someone who would be happy for her.
That is enough. That is more than enough. That is everything.
If You're Reading This Because You're Searching
I know what you're searching for. I have searched for it too — the thing that will reach them, the thing that will bring them back, even for a moment. You will not find a cure in a coloring book. You will not find a miracle. But you might find an hour of peace. You might find a smile. You might find, as I did, that the person you love is still in there, coloring a purple rabbit and waiting for someone to notice.
Buy the book. Sit with them. Don't explain. Don't instruct. Just put the pencil in their hand and let them find their way. Some days they won't want to. Some days they won't be able to. But some days — the days that matter — they will color a page, and hold it up, and look at you with eyes that know exactly who you are, even if they can't remember your name.
Those days are worth everything.
I am writing this at my mother's table, in the facility where she lives now. She is coloring a sleeping puppy — orange, for some reason only she understands — and every few minutes she holds it up for me to see. "Look," she says, and I look, every time, like it's the first time, because for her, it is.
I don't know what you're going through. I don't know who you're losing, or how fast, or what stage of grief you're in. But I know this: there is still joy to be found in the smallest things. There is still connection in the simplest acts. There is still love, even when the words for it have been forgotten.
Buy the book. Sit down. Color together. Let the rest go.
With all my heart,
Looking for Coloring Books for Someone with Alzheimer's?
These are the books that reach my mother when nothing else can. Simple. Familiar. Gentle. Designed for hands that shake and minds that wander.
Browse My Coloring Books on AmazonFrequently Asked Questions
While coloring is not a medical treatment, many caregivers and activity coordinators report that it provides calming engagement for people with dementia. Familiar images — animals, food, landmarks — can trigger positive memories and provide a sense of accomplishment. The repetitive motion of coloring can be soothing, and finished pages offer tangible proof of something completed. Always consult with your loved one's care team about appropriate activities.
Choose books with familiar, comforting subjects rather than abstract designs. My First Cute and Cozy Baby Animals features gentle animal illustrations that many seniors recognize from childhood. USA Cozy Places to Go includes landmarks that may trigger travel memories. The Blob Drawing Book uses simple shapes that don't require following complex patterns. Avoid intricate designs that may cause frustration. Bold lines and large spaces are essential.
Start with the simplest books and don't expect completion. The Blob Drawing Book is ideal for this — simple shapes with no wrong way to fill them. Let your parent color for as long as they want, even if it's just one small space. If frustration arises, put the book away and try again later. The goal isn't a finished page; it's a moment of calm connection. Some days will work better than others, and that's completely normal.
Sit with them. Open the book to a simple page. Place a pencil in their hand and guide the first stroke if needed. Don't explain or instruct — just model. Choose a time of day when they're calmest, usually mid-morning. Use familiar subjects: if they loved cats, start with an animal page. If they were a cook, try a kitchen scene. The familiarity of the image matters more than the complexity of the design. Be patient. Some parents take to it immediately; others need weeks of gentle exposure.