Missing Mom on her Birthday

Celebrating Mom's birthday!

Mom (on the right) and her sisters, Evelyn and Margaret

Mom and me and my dogs

Mom and her grandkids

Monday the 16th of March is Mom's birthday. The first birthday I haven't been able to celebrate with her. She's gone on to heaven where she doesn't have to worry about getting older and where every day can be blessing filled. Mom would have been 95 if she had made it to this day. She did not. She passed on last July. Mom always said she wanted to live to be 100. She almost made it. 

Mom with my sister and her granddaughters

She had a hard way to go those last few years after dementia stole her ability to remember. That's not something I'd wish on anybody. And certainly nothing I wanted my mother or us, her family, to go through. My mother was a very determined woman and so when dementia made her think she was still a young woman who needed to be taking care of her children or cooking for her husband or sometimes being so young that she needed to be home with her parents, then she could not accept that she couldn't go out the door and do what she thought she needed to be doing.

Mom and a great granddaughtr

But now if I can push those last unhappy years aside, I know how much Mom loved life and how much she loved her family. She was a beautiful woman inside and out. And I was very fortunate to be her daughter. What a blessing to have a mother like her! She made sure we learned right from wrong. She encouraged us in whatever we wanted to do with our lives. She loved us even when we were not exactly lovable. 

Mom and another great granddaughter

In her more aware moments in those last years she would say she was tired and ready to give up living except she didn't want to leave us. Family meant so much to her. She meant so much to me. I miss her! 

Mom loved our family reunions

I know many of you have had to say goodbye to your own mothers or fathers. You've told me how much you miss them. How you wish you could have a few more days to walk beside them and hear some of the old family stories again. You've told me how you carry them with you in your hearts. Our mother's voice is the first voice we heard and her words will forever whisper in our thoughts. 

So happy birthday to my mom. I won't get to give you a hug on your birthday or buy you flowers. But I will remember all the beautiful things you've given me. Life and joy and the wonderful knowledge of your love. 

Do you have or did you have a wonderful mother like that?

Facing the Truth of Dementia

"Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger." ~Ben Okri

A sweet friend sent me this book as a gift. Tracy and I met at a writing conference several years ago and then exchanged e-mails now and again. She has a caring heart, and she has also walked dementia's road with her mother. We talked about the challenges of caretaking, the sadness of our mothers losing those wonderful family memories, and the sorrow of losing the mothers we knew and loved so well even before they passed on. Somebody once said dementia or Alzheimer's is the long death. 

Her mother has passed on. My mother is still hanging on, but she's not doing well. She doesn't know me anymore, but she still lets me hold her hand and hug her. Most of the time. She still gives me a kiss when I leave. But this last week, she has seemed farther away and I've had the feeling that something is wrong. It's so sad to sit with her and have her look at me with a "please, do something" look. Most of the time I can't understand what she's saying and she can't understand me either. It's like all the words have been dumped out of a sack and she can no longer sort them out to find the right ones to say or to hear. 

But then Monday when I was there, she suddenly looked up at me and said plain as day, "My back hurts so bad I can barely stand it." The nurse gave her some medicine, but with my mother's extensive osteoarthritis, there's not much that eases the pain. She lived with pain for years. She was tough and able to bear what had to be borne, but that was with memory to give her a reference point. Now each pain is new and unknown since she can't remember the day or hour before. When I went back Tuesday, she was no better. Nor was she any better today when my sister went, but they did let her lie down and she went to sleep. Perhaps that will rest her back. 

Dementia is such a difficult disease, and so many families are facing the same kinds of hard times that my family is dealing with right now. In the introduction to Living with Alzheimer's & Other Dementias, Angela Timashenka Geiger of the Alzheimer's Association says 44 million people worldwide are living with some kind a dementia related illness. I teared up reading the introduction. Not sure I'm brave enough to read the stories. 

Do stories help you deal with problems in your life? 

Many of the stories I've written bring a tear to the reader's eyes. Some of the tears because the story is touching, but some because fiction mirrors real life and sad things happen in life. Mom having to live out her final years with dementia is one of those sad things. It is not what I wanted for her. It is not what she wanted either. She was always so self reliant, so ready to enjoy life. It's not what I would want for anyone. I just heard of another friend who lived life to the fullest that has been diagnosed with some sort of dementia and is in a facility. Dementia happens and it's sad. 

The final sentence in Ms. Geiger's introduction urges all of us to take action in the fight "whether by sharing your experience, speaking up, or spreading the word--so that someday, the only story we have left to write is about the end of Alzheimer's disease."