The neurologist showed me four obvious spots where my mother had experienced strokes. He explained that she had small vessel disease and that it was likely the cause of her cognitive decline.

Moving my mother into her senior apartment was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made. At the same time, it was one of the easiest. Those two things existed together.

In the years my mother lived near us, life found a rhythm.

One day she admitted she had gotten lost driving home from the pet store. A trip that should have taken minutes turned into nearly two hours of driving around a town she had lived in for more than thirty years.

The last thing I wanted was for my mother to see me cry. I usually tried to hide my emotions because when I was upset, she often became upset too.

It was as though different versions of time moved in and out around her constantly, overlapping one another without warning.

We were sitting together on my couch days after her double mastectomy. The soft afternoon light spilling across the room. She looked at me with kindness— and confusion. “How are you feeling?” I ask. My voice is calm. Even. She doesn’t answer. Instead, she looks around the room slowly, deliberately— as if she has never been here before. As if none of it is familiar. There is no recognition in her eyes. Just searching. I reach for her hand. Her left hand. I take it gently