Good visit
1 Feb 2025 20:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerDh and I had a good visit with my aunt today. Truly one more reminiscent of days gone by than I ever thought possible. She was good today, clear, and while still obviously dealing with dementia, there was none of the terribly sad vulnerability of some other visits.
We just sat around and chatted. Nothing really earth shattering or profound, just tidbits of life, updates on family, and just being together. Like we'd done many times over the years, though usually at her place rather than in assisted living. But there was so much of "back then" feeling in today's visit!
I'm going to miss her so much.
It's hard. So many of my thoughts go to her during the days and weeks. Maybe it'll get better once she's died, and I can deal with that grief, now it just feels like... a slow walk deeper and deeper into murky cold water, until eventually I'll be drowning in it. I dunno. It's hard to know when someone is going to die.
It's also so very different from how I feel about my mom. Using the same analogy about walking deeper into water is how I've felt about her dementia, about how little by little so much of her was lost. Not everything, but the grief of losing her feels drawn out, I feel like we've all be losing bits of her for the past 5 or 6 years at least, probably even longer. With JoAnn, it's going to be like losing so much more of her, she's still so much more there than my mother.
I don't know. It's all very hard to deal with. And it sucks. Dementia sucks.
Next week, I'll be driving back up, alone this time. My sister and BIL are flying up, they'll spend a few days there. We'll be meeting, along with her caregiving friends up there, with the nurse who will carry out the medical assistance part of the dying. The nurse, Linda, was a student of JoAnn's way back when, and indeed went into geriatrics because of her.
There is something particularly bitter about JoAnn succumbing to dementia when much of her professional life was geared towards caregiving. Her PhD thesis was about women caring for their husbands with dementia. Ugh.
Losing JoAnn will be life losing the last bit of my childhood. Well, not exactly. Let me see if I can articulate this better. There are people in most of our lives who were part of the adults who kept up safe and allowed us to be children. Protected us, in many ways. People you trusted. People who had your back. After we moved to Tunisia and during our first few miserable years there, I lost trust in my parents. I knew I could not totally count on them to keep me safe. JoAnn never lost my trust.
We just sat around and chatted. Nothing really earth shattering or profound, just tidbits of life, updates on family, and just being together. Like we'd done many times over the years, though usually at her place rather than in assisted living. But there was so much of "back then" feeling in today's visit!
I'm going to miss her so much.
It's hard. So many of my thoughts go to her during the days and weeks. Maybe it'll get better once she's died, and I can deal with that grief, now it just feels like... a slow walk deeper and deeper into murky cold water, until eventually I'll be drowning in it. I dunno. It's hard to know when someone is going to die.
It's also so very different from how I feel about my mom. Using the same analogy about walking deeper into water is how I've felt about her dementia, about how little by little so much of her was lost. Not everything, but the grief of losing her feels drawn out, I feel like we've all be losing bits of her for the past 5 or 6 years at least, probably even longer. With JoAnn, it's going to be like losing so much more of her, she's still so much more there than my mother.
I don't know. It's all very hard to deal with. And it sucks. Dementia sucks.
Next week, I'll be driving back up, alone this time. My sister and BIL are flying up, they'll spend a few days there. We'll be meeting, along with her caregiving friends up there, with the nurse who will carry out the medical assistance part of the dying. The nurse, Linda, was a student of JoAnn's way back when, and indeed went into geriatrics because of her.
There is something particularly bitter about JoAnn succumbing to dementia when much of her professional life was geared towards caregiving. Her PhD thesis was about women caring for their husbands with dementia. Ugh.
Losing JoAnn will be life losing the last bit of my childhood. Well, not exactly. Let me see if I can articulate this better. There are people in most of our lives who were part of the adults who kept up safe and allowed us to be children. Protected us, in many ways. People you trusted. People who had your back. After we moved to Tunisia and during our first few miserable years there, I lost trust in my parents. I knew I could not totally count on them to keep me safe. JoAnn never lost my trust.
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