Mind thief

I've lived with many different versions of my mother through the years. She's been generous and horrible, loving and critical, my best friend, a stranger. For most of her life her tragic childhood has crippled her with resentment. Now, an unexpected ally, dementia, has erased all of that and she has emerged, again, the girl she was meant to be....kind, loving, funny, selfless, grounded. Mom. The best mom. The girl who raised me alone, and made the kind of sacrifices that bless her children with the life she never had.

You'd think there would be no upside to watching your mother slowly lose her mind. But there is. It is the immeasureable blessing of watching her live free of the memories and pain that have tortured her for 80 years. She can't remember her past, but she knows me still. She's acutely aware that her ability to think, even remember one moment to the next, is racing away from her, out of her control, and it scares her sometimes. But she still can play cards with me everyday, make jokes, tap into her immense vocabulary and astound me with her insight.

Her illness will eventually steal her away long before her death. In the meantime - in this short interlude that could be a day or a year - I have my mother back, the woman who raised me. And she has a brief moment of peace.

Finally.