Stories about Mom's Last Days
These 22 entries are my written journal coupled with Juan's photo journal while we cared for my mother during her last months of life. Mom had dementia so we moved her from Buffalo, NY, to live with us in our teeny town in rural Montana. As one would expect when moving an elderly person away from everything they have known and loved, Mom lost a lot of ground, but there was really no way to avoid that. Moving into a facility in her hometown would have spared Mom having to adjust to a new terrain and climate, and she could have kept her friends, but her "loneliness factor" made her yearn to have family right there with her, and Juan and I could do that for her. As Mom settled in her biggest complaint was that all our trees were "pointy." Other than that and her rapidly progressing dementia, Mom did pretty darn well making the transition.
We got to have eighteen months with Mom before she died. Witnessing her steady slide into dementia's fog was heartbreaking and caring for her as she declined the most difficult thing I have done. Despite the difficulties, Juan and I felt Mom's presence in our life was a gift. Not the kind of gift wrapped up in pretty paper, but the kind you struggle hard to uncover and decipher - the best kind - our initiation into a deeper capacity to care.
Unfortunately, now that dementia is so prevalent, ours is a story so many of us could tell. I am compiling my journal and Juan's photographs of Mom's last days into a book and will be sharing it soon. I hope our experience will shine some light down dementia's craggy, uncharted path.
We got to have eighteen months with Mom before she died. Witnessing her steady slide into dementia's fog was heartbreaking and caring for her as she declined the most difficult thing I have done. Despite the difficulties, Juan and I felt Mom's presence in our life was a gift. Not the kind of gift wrapped up in pretty paper, but the kind you struggle hard to uncover and decipher - the best kind - our initiation into a deeper capacity to care.
Unfortunately, now that dementia is so prevalent, ours is a story so many of us could tell. I am compiling my journal and Juan's photographs of Mom's last days into a book and will be sharing it soon. I hope our experience will shine some light down dementia's craggy, uncharted path.
