July 3, 2024
Arrived at my mother’s farm for a visit. The landscape a balm. The inner landscape less optimistic. The words come in repetitive echoes of regret or tentative storying about mysterious figures and bleak recognition.
July 4, 2022
My misery is recorded above after a 12-hour car-plane-train-train-bus-car trip that ended in Ontario humid heat. So the gloom in spite of the beauty of the green vista is well-earned.
On arrival, your horror hits home (again) at how relentlessly Alzheimer’s eats your mother’s brain. At dinner, there are sweet interludes but then you know she knows she wants to get out of this malignant predicament and you know she knows she cannot. Nothing more heartbreaking than this intermittent breakthrough expression of her consciousness of being.
You see yourself and recognize shame at your distant inadequacy. Too close for comfort.
(And the larger stage is set with world news of premature Caribbean hurricanes due to ocean warming. The President’s prime-time performance of frailty in the face of what looks like a madman’s ascendancy. Our PM’s tin ear and refusal to step down. And wars. Etc.
…I’m sure I will feel better in the morning…
July 5, 2024
My mother knows me and doesn’t know me. She is sitting across the table saying I don’t know. And I don’t know either. The conundrum.
Fashionista
My mother’s beloved caregiver Rosa
The days have their ups and downs
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My stepfather and brother are unstinting in their ongoing care of my mother
We are lucky….
We are lucky we enjoy each other,
she says.
The beauty of the farm… so many vistas
P.S. Pictures are easier than words. So much to say and no ability to say it at the moment. I’ve some notes I will type up to add to this post when I have a bit of space and time for reflection…
No Gate No Lock 