As we age the challenges of dementia often creep into our daily lives. Not always, but for some. As the condition deepens little things get foggy and routine things you have just completed often become lost to your recollection. The irony is that things from your long ago past are often just as clear and real as if they had just occurred. The human mind and its’ many conditions are difficult to understand or to try to cope.
Our family has a loved one who is dealing with this reality. Many of us are so very proud, that we cannot admit that we “don’t remember”. And yet the sense of being “just as sharp as ever” or ” at least I have my mind” are things that are said and believed. All the while being unable to know what day it is or what meal is next are also part of that same predicament.
For the family that has to deal with it (is it really dealing?) or just coping. It is very challenging. We remember our loved one as they were in healthier and more robust days. Often their conversation is just as clear and their demands, while reasonable, hold no real intent behind the words. (“Have you got my check book?”) But, how can you know? Yet we must show them respect. Sometimes this has a challenge to it, none of us can understand, and yet we must.
As our family accepts this life challenge, we write about it. All of the loved ones cannot be close and yet their need to know and experience is just as real and urgent as those who live close. They call daily, just to keep that wistful tether. Our writings are intended to be just a chronicle of the daily goings on of our loved one and our interactions during this time. Somehow the words are intended to cross the distance and bring us all a little closer. It is not the same and yet it is the human condition to want to communicate. Even more, it is the effort of communicating that gives meaning to the events as they must be relived and understood, at some level, to be written about.
So come along with us as we travel this unknown path. Enjoy the humor, and experience the sadness. Follow a loving daughter as she copes with the day to day challenges of the decreasing memory of her mom. Keep every day as a treasure and look forward to the morrow with its’ many challenges. So, once a week look up from your daily events and say I wonder “How is mom doing.” Thanks for coming along.
Hello there,
I see you stopped by my blog. One of my readers takes my blog post to the hospital and reads it to her mother, who is battling cancer. She says it starts her mother talking about her own childhood. My reader says she learning all kinds of things about her mother. Perhaps this fun for your mom. I know most dementia leaves the long-term memory intact for the most time.
My grandmother and my father-in-law suffered from dementia. Your posts remind me of the journey.
Best regards, Adela