My Mother's Gift.

A friend called two weeks ago to tell me that her mother, one of my mother’s best friends from our old neighborhood, had died. She was 101 years old.

Both my mother and her friend had dementia the last few years of their lives. As we were sharing our experiences of being with our mothers as they changed, I surprised myself by saying that despite the loss of the women we grew up with, it had been a gift.

Sometimes my mother suffered from her disease. She would literally hold her head as though what she was trying to say was inside, trapped, and she couldn’t retrieve it. She became frustrated and angry. At other times she was peaceful and content. It didn’t take much, a short phone call or visit, for her to say, “You brought a smile to my face.” I couldn’t change her, but I could make her happy.

I rarely think of myself as a patient person. Yet, as my mother’s memory failed, I learned not to wish for the person she had been, but to accept who she had become.   If she asked the same question again and again, I learned to answer her again and again.  She loved to hold my hand as we sat together. I learned to be still and simply love her.

My friend told me that her dogs and her grandchildren seemed to know intuitively what her mother needed. The toddler would walk over to his great-grandmother and put his hand on her knee, looking into her eyes without words. What came naturally for the pets and the children was harder for us, but when we learned how to give without making demands, we too could share moments of serenity.    

It was even harder when my mother became increasingly aggressive. I would tell her aide, “That’s not my mother.” And yet she was. It was challenging to love that woman and not just my memories of her.  Tomorrow is the 3rd. anniversary of my mother’s death. In this time of Thanksgiving I am grateful for the years I had with her and for the acceptance I learned from her.