The day we moved my mother into my brother’s home, I knew I wasn’t only leaving her behind. I was leaving the everyday life that had helped her remember me—and I knew what dementia might take next.

As I've learned more about myself, I've also found myself sharing these lessons with my children. Not because I have all the answers. I don't. I still struggle. I still get stuck. But now I understand myself in ways I never did before. And that understanding has allowed me to help my children begin recognizing some of these patterns in themselves as well.

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.