Tag: dementia loss

The Long, and Last, Goodbyes

grief

Last Easter I look at these pictures and the first thing I notice is his smile. He was so happy that day. Eight months later, he would be gone. But this day… was the happiest I’d seen him in years. His dementia had progressed so much that it was really challenging for mom to travel with him or take him out of the house much anymore. He was weak and unstable. And unable – or unwilling – to follow directions to the point it taxed mom beyond her capacity. We had decided to spend what could quite possibly be one last Easter in Somerset, an honor to our tradition. And, to visit Memaw….

Continue reading →

I Love to Tell the Story

faith, grief

My Daddy went to be with Jesus in December. Because I spent nine years grieving in anticipation, as he slipped further into his dementia, losing him a little every day, I have been surprised by the enormity of the shock I feel now. I keep having moments of realization over and over, in the middle of otherwise ordinary days: My Daddy is dead. Forever. It’s the finality of it that arrests me. I keep having to remind myself: his loss is still so fresh and recent, every time I am overcome by BIG, LOUD grief days and am surprised to find it hard to function well. I have been living and writing and…

Continue reading →

Worthy of Joy

faith, grief, momming

I bought this sweatsuit for myself some time in the last month while out running Christmas errands. Because apparently in this season of my life, self-care looks like treating myself to cozy clothes. I put it on for the first time the day after my Daddy died. My son, Samson, is learning to read, so he points and asks what things say a lot right now, when he can’t make it out himself. He asked about my shirt, the cursive script throwing him for a loop. When I told him the word was, “Joy”, he asked me why I was wearing that, if I was happy Grandaddy died. I came close and I…

Continue reading →