For the second time in my life, someone close to me has dementia. No, I’m not trying to be funny. I’m being serious and it’s depressing. I don’t know much about the disease but seeing how debilitating it is when it strikes someone you love is about the most hopeless of all feelings. In many ways, this person is like their former selves and she’s home but the lights aren’t on. I like to think what is going through their minds may not seem like anything coherent to us but to them there is a sense of peace until their dying day.  I have to think that way or else it is just too goddamn sad.

I’d like to think while their body slowly deteriorates, their minds relive every happy moment like a perpetual flashback of life. My loved one with dementia will say something heartwarming and giggle non-stop. There are no more tears except my own and those closest to her.  She seems extremely happy but her gaze is vacant, distant, as if in another place mentally.  But let’s be honest, I know she is but a mere shadow of her former self.

The reality of caring for an individual in this state is extremely difficult – physically, financially, and emotionally. What do you do? How do you pay for constant care? It is hard to feel anything but despair and hopelessness. The person you knew, you loved, is never coming back, will never be able to carry on an intelligent conversation again and will live out their days with a daily loss of dignity.

Most seriously of all, you don’t want dementia to happen to you. I’ve started taking Magnesium supplements because I’ve learned low levels of this mineral may cause Alzheimer’s. I’ve started meditating because another root cause is a lack of sleep. I’ve had insomnia for years and, while taking Melatonin does help, the real root cause of my sleeplessness is stress. Mentally, I need to slow down and meditation has helped a lot to put my mind at ease. But, this post isn’t about me. It’s about seeing someone you love slowly, mentally and physically, decline before your very eyes and you know there’s nothing you can do about it.

So, I try to stay positive and put on a brave face and think about what it would be like to be inside a demented person’s head. I hope inside her mind all of the memories of pain and suffering she went through have vanished and only the happiest thoughts remain. Gone are the worries and the anger and the disappointments. I’m not at all suggesting this existence is anything but tragic. I’m only hoping for the best when I know the best has come and gone and is now only a distant memory.