Dementia was never part of the plan. I guess we should've anticipated it after my maternal grandmother spent the last years of her life puttering around her house, talking to her long-gone mother, but we thought that was the fog of medication, not Alzheimer's.
After Dad died, when Mom moved up here, I expected our relationship to continue as before. We visited friends, went out to eat, and mapped out day trips she might make in her car. I attributed her absent-minded repetitions in conversation to depression over Dad's death. It took a doctor to point out what I was missing: "She has dementia, bad."
Since then, I've turned to this blog for some self-therapy. I offer these articles for others who may be in the same situation. No joke: that's almost every friend my age.
Articles below take me back to some bad emotional times.
During the months of COVID isolation, Mom continued to have daily visits from Laura, our Visiting Angel. But a rapid decline had already set in. The last time I saw Mom in person before COVID cut off access, I wrote,
Mom's in "a happy place," quiescent and appreciative of all attention. I know there's decline ahead. The legs aren't responding, and this once-proud dancer and long-distance runner now shuffles with a walker after falls during the night; staff now hover watchfully around the bathroom and shower.
During the year of COVID quarantine, decline accelerated.
Then we discovered and treated diabetes, and her energy level shot up. See Two Steps Back from the Precipice (06/2022) and Christmas Card with Mom (12/2022). Her world is certainly reduced from what it was, but it seems to be the right size for her in her 89th year, as I detail with a portrait of her I call Mom's World (02/2023). She was affectionate and engaged at the time of her birthday, as depicted in a collage of photos Mom at 89 (11/2023).
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| [Photo: Mom examines photos of past decades] |
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| [Photo: Singing with Sinatra] |
Safety Deposit Box for Emotions: Photo with Mom
She phoned very upset and demanded instant attention. When I showed up minutes later, she had no recollection of that. I reflect, with photos.
Does "Unfiltered" mean "True?" When my Mom says ugly things, is that Real Mom showing, at last?
Almost 9 O'clock: Being Mom to My Mom. Like a teenage boy, she has a mind of her own and she can get in trouble if she wants to. Serves me right, she said.
Dinner with Mom. She phoned to confirm our regular Sunday dinner. Then she called it off, resenting this minuscule gesture of filial duty. Then she phoned, wondering why I wasn't taking her to dinner.
"I'm Lost Without My Dog." You and me, both, Mom. Losing Sassy may have been a catalyst for change, described in "Preparing for Transition."
"Mom's Great Escape" was pretty amazing, but it has led to the conclusion that she needs "Memory Care" for maximum security. Surprise: She likes it! Update, written a few weeks later: "Closing a Gate."
Some kind of border was crossed the morning that Mom, in a fine mood, asked, "Who was I married to?"
Up to 2018, I was getting frantic or angry phone calls demanding to know, "Why am I here? I don't know what I'm doing!" Now, in memory care, Mom's happy all her waking hours. What's made the difference? I think I know, in Queen Mother.
"Everything's funny!" she said recently. That's where she is, now. In this blogpost are some guaranteed laugh lines.
COVID, 2020: March 8 turned out to be the last time I saw Mom personally, as the pandemic brought an end to visits for almost a year. See a wonderful photo of a visit through a window at "What Virus?" For her birthday, I reflect with a photo from just before the pandemic, "Beautiful as ever at 86."
"Singing and Dancing in the Exam Room." Fully vaccinated and able to have visitors again, she doesn't remember how to write, how to say the things she wants to say, or how to walk, but she remembers Frank Sinatra!
"Sudden Clearing." When Mom's granddaughter visited before moving abroad, it was as if the sun came out: Mom was herself again for that moment. My phone captured the encounter. One rainy afternoon, she got into a song that may have reminded her of dating Dad, Dream a Little Dream of Me. She's often aware that what she has said does not make sense, but sometimes, when it comes out clearly, "It's miraculous."
After a period of precipitous decline in mood and communicativeness, Mom took Two Steps Back from the Precipice in May-June 2022. The decline wasn't due to her dementia; it was diabetes. Surprise! With treatment, she's more like her old self again.
At Christmas 2024, we were holding steady: See the photo for our greeting card at Thanksgiving at Christmas.
Krista Tippett interviews a psychologist of Jewish background who finds positives in the fading of his patients' memories in Someone's Still in There (03/2015).
Forward Day by Day. Dementia appears near the end of my reflection on a prayer booklet, where Scripture tells us how to deal with the kind of unjust accusations that a demented parent can make.
Another religious book Slaying Goliath compared dementia to the giant Goliath in the story of David, a helpful way to conceive the situation.
What if the church offered a service for friends and family to express appreciation for a person on her way to total memory loss -- while she can still receive their gratitude? I saw it in a dream: Imagine a Liturgy for Dementia.
Dementia and Comedy: "Live in their World" In a story on NPR, I heard a daughter frustrated that her actor husband seems to have a better grasp of her demented mother.
Iris: Piece of Mind concerns a novelist whose works I loved over a period of decades, and the film made of her descent into dementia.
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