Another step towards the grave

Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be...

Today I learnt that my mother has slid down another rung (or few) on the Alzheimer’s ladder.

This photo was taken of us just more than 20 years ago. This is the woman I remember. She was fiercely independent, because she had to be. She was so very competent at everything she attempted. When faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, she found a way around it, or through it, or to move it. She loved her gardening, and her pets. She had her vices (wine and cigarettes), but her virtues far outshone those. She was always in my corner, but she took no prisoners when I was in the wrong. She made sacrifice after sacrifice to provide for me. 

I remember one year, when I was going on a school camp in winter, she didn’t have money to buy me a jacket or a suitable jersey, so she knitted me one, even though she HATED knitting. That jersey was one of my favorites until it was  eventually too small for me. When my parents separated, she twisted her boss’ arm to let her work from home so I never had to come home to an empty house. She made my school lunches till I matriculated, always ham sandwiches, because her love language was deeds/ actions.

My step-sister sent this photo to me this past week. She was going through an old album and saw it. I posted it on Facebook, saying that this is how I want to remember my mother, not as who she has become as a result of her disease. My step-father showed it to her over the weekend... and although she remembered that I was her daughter, but couldn’t remember my name.

My head tells me that this was just the next step in her deterioration; not to take it personally. My heart hasn’t processed this yet - that my own mother can’t remember my name. It’ll happen, in time, I know. I hate this disease, that is taking her from me, one horrible step at a time.

She is not forgotten

Sitting in the weak, autumn sun, eating my lunch, I opened Facebook and saw a message from a friend, who had been in her garden and smelled the jasmine my mom gave her to plant. The occasion had been my own daughter's funeral.

And just like that, the old pain rose up in my heart, spilled out of my eyes; a pain so great it felt that my very bones quaked, my poor pressure rose so that My ears could hear nothing, my lungs could not draw breath and my heart quailed. The world seemed, once more, to stop spinning, to implode upon itself.

But like a wave that has crashed retreats back down the shore, the grief receded. And so, now I sit with damp cheeks, damp eyes, a runny nose, a clenched and raw throat, exhausted, yet alive, knowing that life goes on, and so must I.

And that, perhaps, is the hardest thing of all to bear.