You know as you grow up you have thoughts of when I grow up I want to get married, have kids and get old with your loved ones. If you’re lucky you get everything you wanted when you were thinking when I grow up. The thing they don’t tell you or warn you about is all the stuff in between. Life is an amazing thing you have ups and downs, hard ways and easy ways, amazing things and not so amazing things. As you age so do your parents, grandparents and friends. On this adventure of life why is death one of the hardest things to talk about?

As I get older my kids are growing and hitting those special points in life with getting their drivers license, graduating high school then soon college. You see your youngest one at the half way point in high school and know soon they too will be graduating. What is a mom’s heart to do? Keep letting them know I am here for them to direct them the best way and hope and pray they have enough to make the right decisions and choices.

Great lead in to the last visit with my mother. We decided with everything going on the week or two before school starts to visit Nana on her birthday. Now for those who are familiar with dementia this could be interesting to say the least. We have a plan that works for us is we visit over lunchtime. This way she seems to be distracted by her meal and we can kind of chat while she eats. So we go and get her moved to another table with just us. Hoping this doesn’t affect her and sit and visit. We each notice a few things that are different, but don’t call them out as to make her aware of them. So she finishes her main meal with two desserts since it’s her birthday. Then we give her what she wanted her Hershey’s chocolate bar and a card. Which is musical. She loved it. But with watching it later I could see her looking around and seeing her smile and was able to see her old self shine through for a second or two. We only visited for an hour since we had other things to do before school started and therapy showed up as well for her so it was time to go. You would think that was the end of our day experience with dementia… well you would be wrong…

The aftermath of dementia is something people might not talk about. It’s your feelings of how you saw your loved one how they have changed, how they can‘t do something they use to be able to do before, others who where with you and how they saw things especially your kids, just feeling I don’t know how I should feel.

This lead to conversations with my kids about how they felt, what they noticed, etc. Biggest thing was she doesn’t use their names anymore, but she knows that they are her grandkids. This time too she didn’t use my name either just she knew I was her daughter. I was told earlier by someone that you look at it that they aren’t getting worse that they are digressing becoming younger where you are teaching them how to eat, talk, do things, but will never really remember. One good thing is that she has kind of forgot that she forgets again which is a Blessing in disguise.

Talk to each other about what is happening how you are feeling get it out in the open. It’s ok to talk about it, death. Really it is. We ended up talking about how to say goodbye now even with your loved one still living. But coming to terms with it while they are still here is so much better than later. This doesn’t mean you don’t keep visiting, but it makes it easier in a way that when your loved one does die, past away, etc. to except, at least that is how I feel.

I pray for all of you for wherever you are on this adventure we call dementia and know you are not alone.

Blessings