When Your Parent Becomes the Child...

     When your parent becomes your child, you will go through a life of both humor and heartbreak. It is a time of exhaustion and the disappearance of a Mother's love, as you have always known it or a father's strong presence in your life. It is the most difficult journey you will ever have to face with no joy along the way and no encouraging moments. It is a time of despair to see the one you have always taken for granted to always be there with a loving hand, to become the child now... 

 

 When Your Parent Becomes Your Child, is the works of progressing symptoms of dementia. It will take you through the sunshine and the rain, no hope, and despair. It often blocks your view so that you lose perspective on what is important while you work to give your loved one what they need most — love and a sense of as much dignity as you can possible provide for them... Often during the walk with my mother, I shed tears I never knew were possible for a human eye to hold. There were nights when I did not sleep because she did not. After a while days ran into nights and nights into days, soon I lost all sense of time. Weeks, when I never left outside my home.

 However, my mother left me with something money could never buy. She left me with lasting memories of a precious mother and the knowledge that one day,I would see her again in a land where there is no such thing as dementia. She left me a legacy I must live up to as well as I am able to do...To lead my children home, to do my best at making it possible to have a future Homecoming Day in Heaven... She left me with the knowledge of knowing how to earn my way in life and not to depend on others to get me through. Most importantly, she left me with beautiful memories of growing up with all the love a child could have. Sweet memories, precious memories.

My mother has gone Home now. She quietly slipped away in the early hours of the morning. Knowing my mother, I feel sure she warned the Angels who came to escort her Home to be quiet and not wake her daughter. 

There are times I miss her so much. I miss the strong, healthy mother of my childhood. The mother that worked and cared for her family through hard times, happy times, and not so happy times. I miss the "Foundation" of our family; the glue that kept us all put together. I miss the times of joy that only a mother and her daughter can share.

The way I see it, there is no love like a mother's love.

Walk joyfully with God, Mama;

 Mary Frances King