I Don't Want to Go There

Dementia takes you where you don't want to go.

Mom and I used to talk on the phone a lot.  When I would come and visit, we'd often stay up late into the wee hours of the morning discussing life and philosophy and the nature of man.

In anticipation of a visit I often called every day.  We would talk about what we were going to do while I was in town and make plans for dinners with my sister and her family.  I arrived on one such visit, after daily phone calls during the preceding week, and we held our traditional talk long into the night.

The next morning I came downstairs and found Mom in the family room in her robe. 

"It sure is good to have you here," she said with a smile.  Then she said, "It sure was a surprise when you came!"

I think this was the first moment I knew.  My visit should not have been, could not have been, a surprise.  Up until that moment, I had wondered if she was struggling with memory issues.  I had probably noticed her "covering", but had dismissed it as my imagination.

Back then, I was still wrapped up in how her difficulties were affecting me.  I wanted her not to change.  I wanted her to continue to be the mom who could sit and talk with me for hours on end.  I didn't want to think about losing her to that disease.  Honestly, I don't remember how I responded to her in that moment when I could no longer deny there was a real problem.  I probably just stared at her in shocked silence and confusion.

Dementia Land is a place where no one in their right mind wants to go.  Mom had a one way ticket, and the rest of us were going to be dragged along kicking and screaming.   Being upset about having to go is normal.  We stare in the face of this impossible situation and say to ourselves, "This can't be really happening."  But it happens anyway.

I keep trying to come up with some brilliant closing line, something that will leave you with a sense of hope for the future.  There is a redemption of sorts to come, I promise.  But one thing I had to do to cope with Mom's illness was to learn to live in a world where things didn't always have a nice, tidy little ending.  Sometimes there's just a pause until the next thing happens.