Reflections On Love

Today was a better day for my 93 year old mother. Deep gratitude. 🙏

Monday evening was a hard one. My mom was largely not able to be present. She broke her silence when Ron briefly left the dinner table and tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t understand — it just sounded like garbled noises. As I leaned in to listen again while watching her lips, I was finally able to hear the words “that gentleman” and my heart sank. I realized that she was asking me who Ron was. That was a first. It was also a first to see my mother repeatedly not respond to the simplest questions. There was just this blank stare. I wanted to cry. But instead I reached out instinctively to touch my mom and smile into her eyes and tell her that I love her. Just before we left, Mom appeared to recognize Ron and we all said our loving goodbyes. There was a lot of grieving after we’d stepped out the door...

So I didn’t know what I would walk into today. Alzheimer’s is like that. While Mom was mostly quiet this afternoon, and unlike two days earlier, there were also these lucid loving moments that were heartfelt treasures. Like when I noticed her looking deeply into my eyes at the lunch table. “I’m so proud of you. I really am,” she said. “Thank you, Mom. I’m so proud of you, too. I really am.” And we went on gazing into each others eyes.

Despite the ongoing decline, every time my mom is able to be present, Love is also present. As everything else slips away, Love is what remains. And as my therapist and countless others wisely affirm, Love is what we are.

This love that I’m able to share with my mom today continues to be more remarkable for me than any words can ever express. Over the decades, therapist after therapist who understood my mother’s severe narcissistic illness reflected tenderly to me the need to grieve my mother like a death. All evidence pointed to that giving or receiving love and compassion was and would always be impossible for my mother.

My twin was so tormented by this loss of not being loved by our mother that the last time I saw my brother he told me, “I know that I need to get away from Mother. And I know I can’t.” This was my first visit back to Michigan in 1977 after I had moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1975, and at a time when John was hospitalized on the psychiatric ward at Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe. As I walked out of the door of the hospital, I knew that he was telling me goodbye and that I would never see my brother again. Eight months later John ended his life.

Many years later came the treatment for my mother’s mental illness and the miracle of the impossible becoming possible. That was 6-1/2 years ago.

Just today as I held my mother’s hand as we sat in silence in her room after lunch, I sat there looking at a framed photograph of my brother. And I felt how we were surrounding our mother in love. Love abides. Molly