My mom has vascular dementia. And she is dying.
It sounds both more dramatic and exactly as dramatic as it is. Everyone is dying. And we can contemplate the mortality of our parents, certainly, much easier than that of our own or our children.
But my mom’s dementia journey has moved to end-stage and it’s obvious. It sucks. She was diagnosed 5 years ago, but we all know she’s had vascular dementia a lot longer than that. But the last few months really have steamrolled downhill. She still recognizes us and she still laughs, sometimes very hard. But she can’t stay awake. She has a hard time eating. And she can no longer stand.
She has moved into long term care and we have called in a hospice evaluation. They are the ones who have said that yes, it is clear she is in the last 6 months of her life. And it may be longer than 6 months. Or it may be shorter. Her passing is not imminent, but it’s not years from now either.
I am a big proponent of using the right words. I teach a course on writing clearly and precisely. But writing about my mother’s death is more than I can handle. The word “death” seems particularly ugly right now. I want to write about her passing, her journey, her transition, but not her death. Those other words imply continuous movement. Death is an dead-end in front of a stone wall.
I also don’t understand death anymore, either. In the past few years, two young friends/colleagues of mine have passed and they left a gaping hole in the fabric of my life. Their deaths were not timely and their lives were not complete. But they left us anyway. It’s their passages where I truly do not understand what it means to die.
I recently shared with some friends that I don’t understand death. And they took that as an invitation to explain their understandings, to share their truths to help me with mine. However, I think death is one human truth that is unique to each of us. I don’t know what happens next. But I don’t think God/The Universe would create one source of energy that isn’t recycled again in some way. I’m not saying I believe in reincarnation as much as I believe in compost.
But one thing a former student shared with me that has become my new mantra. When she sat by her father’s bedside as he passed, her first thought after he was gone was “I didn’t know you could do that.” I honestly cannot think of a better explanation for where I am right now. It is one truth I am comfortable sitting with for a while.
