Forget-Me-Not: A Remembrance of My Mother's Dementia

in #story6 years ago

My mother died last month at the age of 93. She had a full and happy life (from what I can tell), but for the past fifteen years, she battled with dementia, which robbed her of her short-term memories. Shortly after she began leaving lit the stove in her apartment, we moved her to a memory-care nursing home.
She didn’t have Alzheimer’s, despite people frequently characterizing her illness as such. She had a more generalized dementia. Mom forgot what she had for lunch five minutes after eating, but she remembered us children.
She always enjoyed getting out for trips in the car, but eventually, these excursions began to confuse her because she would not remember where (or why) we were going.
Mom never became angry or abusive, though she began to exhaust herself packing her clothes and waiting for her parents to come pick her up. I think she was going back to the time when she took leave of her job in Chicago for a month-long journey to her hometown before she and my father were wed in 1948.
I lived about 1000 miles away from her and visited about twice a year. I will always remember two summer visits, because, contrasted with each other, they revealed to me how dementia was slowly trimming away my mother’s memories.
One early summer visit, I nosed my car into a parking space at her home. We had just gone out for a drive. In front of us, the branches of a flowering bush sagged under the weight of large white blossoms.
“Look at those hydrangeas,” Mom said.
She had always been an avid gardener, a hobby she got from her father, who tended a large flower garden. Mom’s efforts had always been more modest, but she taught my sister and me the names of many plants, birds and animals frequently found in her garden.
fmn.jpg
Mom would also take blossoms from her garden and press them in books and magazines. When they had dried, she would put the flattened flowers on cardstock to send as notes to friends and family. In the card shown above Mom preserves the small blue flower called “Forget-Me-Not.”
The next year, we again went on an excursion, perhaps to get her favorite meal, barbeque ribs. I forget the trip but remember the return.
We pulled into my favorite parking space. The bush was heavily laden with blooms.
Mom was silent for a moment as I turned off the car.
“I used to know what those were called,” she said.
“They’re hydrangeas, Mom.”
“Oh, you’re so smart,” she added playfully. Her quick praise was an easy way to move on from what must have been an ever-growing anxiety over her memory problems.
Memories, like the plants in my mother’s garden, need to be tended. They need to be pared back so they can blossom anew. They need watering and weeding. Like fragile blossoms, they need to be preserved between the pages of a book ... or on the blockchain … so we can send them to friends and family.

Sort:  

I'm just at a table next to my bed with my laptop. My daughter is lying talking about her day. I read the first lines of your post, and then, I decided to read aloud for her too. It made our hearts cringe, the moment when your mother waits for her parents to pass by her. She did a good job with you. Through your writing I can appreciate love. I'm very sorry for your mom's departure. Thank you for sharing the memories of your mom and her art. What can be more beautiful than receiving a postcard as delicate as the flower Forget-Me-Not?

Thanks for the kind reply. I'm glad that you were able to share it with your daughter.

Bittersweet memories. My grandmother, who is of a similar age, is sadly beginning to show signs that her memory and mind are not as sharp as they once were.

Thanks for reading. It's tough to watch. May you find patience and love as you work through this with her.

My mother did not reach old age. She died at age 48. I am glad you had sweet memories of your mom.

48 is too young. I hope you can keep the warm memories of her with you.

Yeah. She had a cardiac arrest on new year's day of 2003. So every new year we are reminded of her passing.

I offer my most sincere condolences for your lose my friend. This was a beautiful way of putting to words a very difficult thing to handle. I am so glad that you have these great memories with her. And I absolutely agree with you that memories need tending. It's so easy to let them slip away.

Thanks for stoping by and for your warm reply.

You're more then welcome. I also sent my group of friends over to check you out. (I made a game out of your post.) I hope you've been able to enjoy some "human" comments my dear friend. ☺

Thank you for sharing your lovely memories.

Thanks for your reply. All the best.

It's great to see you here @stormyowl

Congratulations @webbie! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of comments

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Do you like SteemitBoard's project? Vote for its witness and get one more award!

@johndoer sent me. :-)
Thanks for sharing such an emotional time with us. I think it does us good to share - and it also gives other insight into what you're experiencing.

Strangely, one of my romantic novellas that I shared recently on Steemit - Friendship on Fire (hosted by dbooks) - features a 50-something woman whose going through a trauma-induced dementia of sorts. Thankfully, in this novella, she manages to find some healing and regain some of what she had lost - but age-related dementia often has no relief in this manner.

Anyway, I really stopped by to encourage you to keep up the good work. I was told when I first got on here that it really takes 4-6 months (reinvesting everything earned) to get established. I celebrate month #5 today and I can really confirm this is true!

Things you can do to help yourself:

  1. post every day without fail (2-3 posts daily, if you can).
  2. find contests to enter - for many weeks, that was my most reliable source of income here on Steemit.
  3. look for SBI - steem basic income - shares to win - that's a longer-term reward. If you can, sponsor a couple of shares for someone else as that gives you shares as well.
  4. join a discord group - yeah, another client, another chat box to monitor, but I've had more support off joining one of those than I ever had finding Facebook groups for Steemit (though there are some good groups.)
  5. Engage with others - find plenty of posts to comment on. Eventually people will start looking at what you've got to offer.

Good luck!
(I've done a Steemit for Newbs series in the past - once I've finished my Stonehenge serialization, I will redo that one for dbooks...)

My condolences to your family. Dementia and Alzheimer's is tough, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about a year ago. I find he's retreating more and more into the past. He's telling me stories I've never heard before about his time in the military and his younger days but struggles with the short term memory.

thanks for sharing your wonderful memories...

Very touching.