A bitter sweet breakfast

Today I am melancholy as the youngest of my children turns 21.

She is away at college but earlier in the week surprised us with a quick visit home and an early celebration with family. I am sure what ever occurred last night among her peers was a far cry from her spaghetti dinner and panda cake affair here. I hope she had an amazing time.

This morning as Savannah awakes an adult in the legal sense it is a milestone for both of us. I have no more “children.”

Apparently neither does my mother. At breakfast I told her it was Savannah’s birthday. She dropped a chunk of her home fries to the dog sitting dutifully to her right and looked back at me with a blank stare.

This moment, these faces, I never want to forget.

“Who has a birthday?” she asked.

“Savannah, my daughter,” I answered.

"Oh," she said seemingly unaware that I had a daughter.

Then I asked her if she had any daughters.

“No,” she said. “I don’t have any children.”

I started to get a little weepy but fought it off as there were others at the table and I didn’t want to make a scene. In reality it was a scene from my daily drama called, The Guiding Darkness, featuring me as the chaperone for my mother slipping deeper and deeper into her dementia. In this episode all of her memories of motherhood have vanished. From giving birth to four children, to losing her first born, to our youth and our school days, watching us struggle and succeed in becoming successful adults with kids of our own. I wonder if the succession of annual traditions and holiday gatherings that make our family so unique and special are still in there somewhere. 

Motherhood for me has not always been easy. There have been a host of challenges but they are far outweighed by the rewards. Like the day my daughter Rhiannon finished the Falmouth Road Race 18-months after major orthopedic surgery, and when my son Steve married his high school sweetheart Jennifer, and the day my grandson Russell was born, and when Savannah skipped down the stairs with news she had been accepted into Dartmouth College and gave me the first spontaneous hug I had received from her since she entered puberty.

Who would I be if I didn’t remember those things?

Days like this are bitter sweet. Celebrating that my baby girl is officially a grown woman at the same time knowing this horrible disease has robbed my mother of all of her memory of raising her family. I know how hard she worked at it. I know how much she loved us. 

That is the real tragedy of Alzheimer's.