My mother wanders in and out of reality, the synapses in her brain working part-time, with only partial benefits and without bonuses.

 The post-it notes try desperately to clue her into her daily routine. “Today is Tuesday, Jan. 6^th, 1998” (but of course it’s Wednesday, January 7^th).  She calls me then to find out the date – “Is it January 29^th?”  “No,” I say, giving her the correct day and time.  “What am I supposed to be doing?” she struggles.  And I, several states away, try to guess what she might like to do, or tell her to go downstairs at the retirement center to eat.

  I want to be there with her to help her through the fog, but I don’t want to be there, too.

  She is the most incredible person I know, and as ill as her brain is, she is still selfless and giving, and laughs even now as hard as it is to lose the only organ that really matters. I don’t like to see her like this.  I don’t like to feel her fear, to see this strong person so physically and mentally weak.  It scares her that she doesn’t “know anything” and it scares me to know that she will get worse.

  She has never needed “taking care of” before – never been sick, really, until this year when she was in the hospital and they tied her to the bed before we got there and didn’t give her anything to eat or drink for 24 hours –“waiting for the surgeon to see her first,” they said when I called from the airport and cursed them when I found out.  Gratefully, Mother has no memory of those three weeks in the hospital.  I wish I, too, could forget them for they were a peek into the future of an old person who was once young and vital who, without advocates, and even with them, has no control, no present except the pictures on the wall of the past.

  Live in the past, Mother, for it was good.  You were a queen, Mother.  You presided at meetings, served punch from your silver punch bowl wearing your long gowns and long gloves, conversed with learned men and women, performed on the stage and the basketball court, and even, when necessary, “laid out” dead bodies for burial.  You shoveled the West Texas sand from inside your house after sandstorms during the Depression; you wept over losses of your parents, your grandchildren, your husband.  But you were the one who always said, “Everything will be all right,” and made it so.  You smelled good, looked pretty, made me proud to be your daughter.  You were the queen and I was the princess.

  Remember those good times, Mother, and please forget today.  Today doesn’t matter in your life now; today is here only for itself.  Yesterday was there for you.  Get under the electric blanket and live in yesterday.