Author: DSC

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Very early 2019: In August of 2004 I wrote to my father’s seldom used private email to ask if we could talk, alone. I had grave concerns about, what we ended up calling, my mother’s ‘state of mind.’ Dad and I were able to run to the store together, the next time he and mom came down from the small island they lived on. We paused at a cafe to have a soda and compare notes. We were witnessing different venues, if you will, of my mother’s faltering mentition. Me by phone and email, and dad in person. Four months after our conversation, my dad was diagnosed with leukemia. Our focus shifted, yet he and I would have these surreptitious conversations via phone where I would ask very pointed yes/no questions, so as not expose, at his end, that I was pumping him for intel on how mom was doing. To this day my mother has a robust case of paranoia, and indeed she used to say, years before this illness settled into stake its claim on her brilliant mind, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you!” Dad lived for mostly well for over 9-years with his illness, some of those years being fairly normal. Upon entering the hospital (via ambulance) for the last time, we were confronted with the reality of how far down the dementia path my mom had walked. Further, while we thought she had been caring for him all those years, he had actually been caring for her. Dad was transferred to a regional NICU unit, with my daughter and I in tow. My husband took mom back to her second home, blocks from us, for the night. Mom called my husband because she couldn’t find my dad. All that had transpired, not being able to get dad off the bathroom floor of their Island house that morning, the ferry ride off island, my daughter (a nurse) arriving at their second home and telling her step-dad to call 911 (much to mom’s ire), time in the local hospital before dad was transferred, and every detail, every single detail, in between, had been forgotten. “Where’s Bobbie?” Mom asked my husband. That’s when we knew shit was real. Almost 6-years after my father’s passing, mom has been in assisted living for almost 2-years. The road getting her there was fraught. She, of course, refuted any notion that anything was wrong, including threatening to shoot the neurologist who diagnosed her with dementia (by then I’d removed the guns from the house, and she wouldn’t have known how to use them any longer, but one does not take risks). Her PCP refused to send the form-letter requesting that the state re-test her (horrible, wretched) driving. The neurologist had no problem asking the state to revoke her license. There’s a big story there... Read the Blog! Mom is sure she’s returning home any minute. It makes it Very difficult to spend time with her as she, 110% of the time, wants to make plans about her escape from the hell that is living in one of the best appointed assisted living communities in the country. And, yeah, I’ve been there for all of her losses, and so am her target. I see her less and less, and my spies tell me she’s having a great time playing cards with the guys, going on outings, bossing the flower arranging group each week, enjoying the women’s group, the walking club, has reengaged with watercolor painting (she’s really good!), and any number of exercise classes. When I am not managing my mother’s two (rental) properties, finances, medical, retirement, insurances, etc, I garden, quilt and sew, sing professionally, work on, and manage the myriad of projects we have going on around our own property, and one day I hope to be able to return to my wee landscape design business. Prolog 2023: Mom passed in 2020. Not of Covid, but a stroke. I asked someone who knew her if it was a blessing or an insult to struggle with dementia for 16-years and then get taken down by a stroke. I was assured it was a blessing. I am at a point, over three year after her passing, where I dearly miss who she used to be as the trauma of what dementia caused her to become eases away.