I walked down the sidewalk along the front of our house to visit, which I did a few times a day, even though she didn’t want to be a burden. When we bought a house with an attached apartment, a “mother-in-law suite,” we didn’t know this is where my mom would stay when dementia set in and where her brain would so quickly change. I found her at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad. She’d shakily written the words crab, mitten, cucumber (spelled wrong) on the blue lines. She was writing things down so they wouldn’t float away.
Jocelyn Jane Cox is working on a memoir about her mother. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, son, and her eyeglass collection. Find Jocelyn at www.jocelynjanecox.com, on Twitter @jocelynjanecox and on Instagram @jocelynjanecoxwriter.