cthewind's Blog

I’m in the second decade of life with a mom who has Alzheimer’s. It has been called “the long goodbye,” which conveys much of the prolonged sadness and grief involved in this season of love.
 
It’s not all sad.
 
Sometimes it’s beautiful or funny. There are gifts in the forgetting and creativity in the remembering. One huge gift for my mom and with my mom is that she forgets mistakes, imperfections, disappointments, and conflicts within moments of their occurrence. This is not the mom I grew up with. Oriented toward doing good in all ways to all people, she was often distressed by memories of not measuring up to others’ expectations. And, to be honest, she sometimes held a grudge when we didn’t measure up to hers. Forgetting has removed so much of her distress and her inner critic. I am truly grateful and receive this as a gift.
 
My mom is creative in remembering, too. Her brain is amazing. Quite beyond her will or her powers to control what she remembers or how, she tells stories that, though on the surface are false, reveal tender secrets she never would have thought to share. Her memories are like myths in that way—disclosing depths of identity and truth of character within outlandish plots of fancy. In this way I’ve learned about her childhood wonder in watching the city of Los Angeles grow and her own mother’s role in making way for her independence in university and beyond. This, too, is a gift.
 
In addition to being sad and grateful and amused, sometimes I feel a little crazy myself—called beyond my sense of selfhood and very aware of my own mortality. Might it be that this is also a gift? In releasing certitude I embrace more fully the openendedness of me and of you.

I fall more deeply in love with this world we share.