Thank you for this essay. I’m visiting my mother this week who is 94 and still living independently. She struggles, though. Her short-term memory is very poor, she gets confused easily, goes to bed earlier and earlier and gets up later and later, and is fatigued all the time. Moving her into assisted living would probably kill her.
We lost our 16 year old cat last year a month after my mother-in-law died; he gradually declined and then suddenly got worse. And our 18 year old cat died this January.
It’s hard watching our loved ones decline, wondering if they’ll still be here in the morning. It’s difficult for me to stay patient with my mother when she asks me for the tenth time in almost as many minutes what day it is. I try to find joy in the absurd. I try to accept that I’m grieving her eventual death.
A love story of another kind.
Thank you for this essay. I’m visiting my mother this week who is 94 and still living independently. She struggles, though. Her short-term memory is very poor, she gets confused easily, goes to bed earlier and earlier and gets up later and later, and is fatigued all the time. Moving her into assisted living would probably kill her.
We lost our 16 year old cat last year a month after my mother-in-law died; he gradually declined and then suddenly got worse. And our 18 year old cat died this January.
It’s hard watching our loved ones decline, wondering if they’ll still be here in the morning. It’s difficult for me to stay patient with my mother when she asks me for the tenth time in almost as many minutes what day it is. I try to find joy in the absurd. I try to accept that I’m grieving her eventual death.