Here’s the deal, over the past five years my mother has slowly, by small degrees been slipping into dementia – not full blown Alzheimer’s but a combo of dementias –  apparently there are quite a few ways to lose one’s mind.  Whatever the official medical term, we in the family talk about my mom’s condition as “the curtain coming down”.  And how appropriate given my mother was a pianist.  

Gone are the days of having conversations, sharing stories or laughing together. Now, I’ll drop by the retirement home and mom and I will have lunch together.  It’s a quiet lunch.  She asks the same questions several times: “How are the girls?” (I don’t think she remembers their names.) “How’s Mark?” (She remembers my husband’s name but I haven’t heard her say MY name in a long time….has she forgotten?)  She tells me the story about the lady at the next table a couple of times and she is continually surprised when she sees one lady in particular, claiming “I thought she was flying home to Germany!”  No point explaining the lady lives here permanently.  

So much of mom is gone now.  Bright, chatty, Martha-Stewart pales in comparison, making casseroles for anyone in need – all of that vitality is fading, disappearing behind the descending curtain.  Yet every once in a while there are snippets, even flourishes of her old self that let me know that mom’s still here – even in a very edited, reduced, muted way.  Whenever my girls visit, she comes to life.  And look out if there’s a social event – all of a sudden she’s Julie McCoy, Your Retirement Home Director. 

But it never lasts long.  The other day after a bright moment, she asked if I had finished my Christmas shopping. (I’m going to pretend she knows it’s May and she thinks I’m THAT organized! Or my heart will break into a million pieces)

So my mother lives in a world that’s neither fully here nor there.  She’s betwixt and between, caught between what was and what’s becoming.  She’s entering her world behind the curtain.  I know I have much to be grateful for:  I still have my mom, she recognizes my children, she’s not angry or in an altered state.  But, she’s also not really here anymore.  And I guess on Mother’s Day, it hit me that I really missed the mom I knew.