Posted by fi on October 23, 2005, at 5:53:37
I am so lucky that my mother was around and well until my early 40s. She was a very good friend, and I lived at home until my mid20s. She also had all that knowledge of the family and what we had all done.
Now she is gradually disappearing with dementia. So she is still alive, and maybe it is a blessing that she lives completely in the present and doesnt have insight into her situation beyond what she cant do at the time. She does still recognise me, and has times when she can remember and talk about little bits of the past.
I know it will get worse. I was struck by someone else's description of dementia as grasping at things that are pulled inevitably into a black hole.
I am lucky that she is still alive, but it is also a kind of prolonged death and bereavement for me that has 'started early'. I dont know whether to talk about her in the past or present tense. She likes chocolate; she liked gardening?
Things remind me of her, and can catch me unawares; seeing a photo of a cat and thinking how she would like it, then remembering that she cant anymore. I dont live in the same city anymore, so there's the usual stuff about guilt re not being there, and not being confronted with the reality often. I have lost most of her, but she is still alive.
I can appreciate that other people just think that's she's old, and lots of old people get dementia, so its all normal and shouldnt be an issue or upsetting. But it is.
Its helped to write that (and upset me more than I realised I would be). I dont know anyone else who has/is also going thru this, tho there must be a vast number. The people I work with are much younger than me, and take having active healthy parents for granted.
Fi
poster:fi
thread:570803
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/grief/20051017/msgs/570803.html