To Be and then--Not to be!

I was/am woefully unprepared for my mom’s greying years to be lived under the curse of dementia.  Oh, I surely knew about it, many of my friends and acquaintances having dealt with it with their own loved ones.  I heard all the stories but now know they fell on unopened ears.   It is the absurdity of it, the meaningless nothingness of the understanding of it.  There is no way to know the human I will meet today, who she will be, how she will act, her moods,  her fears; the utter sorrow of not being able to help her with reason or scripture.  However, my presence is still a balm for her troubled spirit, heart, and mind.  Me being there; she knows.  Somehow the love of a loved one breaks through.  It doesn't fix her but it does make her momentarily peaceful, and the terrified look in her eyes disappears.  I think she feels safe most of all.  Safe that if death comes knocking she will die in the presence and embrace of a loved one.  Sadly this too is a rational thought by a rational loving human being about a human who is almost completely without her hard-earned right to rationality.  The one thing I know is that this is not the mom I have always known but it is my mom I have left.