Caring for a Mother with Dementia

In Slate, Kim McLarin writes about her mother's dementia. My mother was a woman whose sharp wit and sharper tongue could be wielded either on your behalf or against your tender person, but there was no denying the weapon was formidable. To see such a woman reduced to dependency is heartbreaking. But what I feel is not just sadness. What I feel is something else.... In many ways, my mother’s life has never been this pleasant. No worrying about money, no worrying about protecting her children from the dangers of a racist society. All her needs are attended to, most desires (You want ice cream? Yes!) immediately met. My sister’s house is spacious and beautiful, far grander than any house my mother owned. More poignantly, dementia has freed my mother of a lifetime’s accumulated emotional wounds and grievances. The abandonment, the betrayal, the abuse, all largely forgotten, the pain finally softened, the memories finally dimmed. But gone too are agency and purpose and what seems to be any kind of interiority, though we can’t know this for sure. Gone is dignity, not in the sense of useless pride but in the sense of critical self-respect. Left behind is placidity atop a teeming helplessness.