![]() Poetry has long been a way for me to attempt to express the inexpressible. Beautiful because my mother’s spirit showed through her trauma, and the disease became a stage upon which the love in our family could be illuminated and acted out. Heartbreaking because she was aware that “something wasn’t right.” It was painful to see her struggling to present a healthy face to the world when her memory was disintegrating. Mom’s descent into Alzheimer’s was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. Her words no longer matched her behavior. Her emotions seemed out of proportion to what was happening in her life. At first her memory became slippery and she began repeating stories. My mother’s mind began to unspool at the same time I was trying to become a mother and struggling through a series of miscarriages. I had imagined my mother would always be there for me, at least until she was well into her eighties. My grandmother and great aunts lived into their nineties. ![]() There was a span of ten years among us, and I had vivid memories of my mother hiking, playing tennis, swimming and sailing at the upstate New York lake we visited each summer. Mom always said her children kept her young. I always knew she was an “older mom.” She had been a fount of wisdom for me during my adolescence and early years of marriage. ![]() She was 41 when I was born, so I suppose it shouldn’t have been a shock to see her aging in this way. When I was in my early thirties, my mother began showing signs of Alzheimer’s. ![]() Expressing the Inexpressible through Poetry ![]()
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