Yesterday I was alone at home, my son had gone over to a friends house.  I did not want to remain there alone so I decided to go visit my mother.  My mother is 88 years old, has severe dementia, can no longer walk, and she is nearly blind.  She has been in a nursing home for the last 7 years.

When I visit my mother now, the best I can hope for is a moment or two of cognition, when she behaves in a way where she seems to understand what I am saying.  Even then she usually doesn't recognize me.  Complete sentences are rare.  Mostly she makes indecipherable sounds.  

Yesterday Mom was still in bed when I arrived.  I asked the staff to get her up so I could take her outside.  After she was up in her wheel chair, I got a cup of water for her and we went out onto the enclosed patio area at the home.  

We sat in the Sun, I held her hand, rubbed her back and talked to her.  This is how most of the visits go now.  She tries to talk, usually without success.  My mothers quality of life is terrible.  

My mother has been significantly impaired for the last 7 years, I have mourned losing her for at least that long.  It has been a long slow goodbye as I have seen additional pieces of her mind die with each visit.  I was lucky though, my mother remembered me the longest of anyone.  And last week she said my name, it has been a long time since that happened.

She never wanted to go this way.  She has a living will but the conditions of it have never been met.  Her heart is strong and I can only imagine how much longer it will beat.  If God was a fair arbiter on 13 March he/she would have taken my mother, not my wife, Cheryl.  But that is not what happened.

I think about my mother and my wife and compare their demise in my mind.  I know that my wife made a tragic choice and took her life while inebriated and passed quickly and peacefully, while my mother has been tortured with a long slow living death.  Cheryl certainly had it much easier than my mother.  

The next question I ponder is what is better for the survivors?  I think neither, I have cried many times over the years as I have watched my mother slowly disappear and I know I will cry again for my mother when her body finally stops functioning.  It has been a pain spread over many years like an insidious parasite eating away at me, but I have accepted it.  Cheryl's sudden unexpected passing  has been a like sharp painful severing of vital organs and limbs with no hope of seeing her again, it has been intense emotionally agony.   Knowing that I have accepted the loss of my mother, even though her body continues to function, gives me hope that at some point I can accept Cheryl's passing.  I am nowhere close to that now.

Yesterday, while I was talking to Mom, she opened her eyes wide, like she heard and understood what I said.  That was the highlight of the visit.  

I can only hope that my visits are providing some comfort to her.

Me and Mom 5-16-2015