Observations

We take our mental faculties for granted an awful lot.We do not stop to think to thank our brains for doing whatever it is they do for the entirety of our lives that allows us to be the creatures we are. Each of us is unique in so many ways, and yet that uniqueness can be taken away so quickly.

The scientist in me has stood back and watched my step mom's progression in this last several months, and frankly, I am startled. Most recently, it is nouns that are eluding her. Names. Things. A surprisingly large portion of our communication is based on having given things around us names that we all recognise- we spend hours trying to teach a small child the difference between cat and dog. I am watching all of that slip away from someone who has been around more than seven decades. Hell's bells! I couldn't write a third of this paragraph without nouns!

The really frustrating thing for her is that it seems to only be the words connecting to the items themselves that is the problem. Show her a picture of what it is she is talking about and she knows immediately that the two are the same.
I find myself somewhat horrified by my "dispassionate" noting of the changes, but at the same time I am trying to learn each time I see her again how I can communicate with her and know she might come away from the visit with some memory of it.
There may come a day when she won't recognise me when I go thru the door. Her mom had Alzheimer's, and had to be introduced to me each time I went over. One day, out of the blue, she called me by name, unbidden by anyone....but only that once.

Mind is a strange and fragile thing. Injury, drugs, a host of unknowns can take it away without warning. When it goes swiftly, at least none of the parties involved have to suffer for long. When it is seeping away, at speeds unpredictable by the best authority, it is almost painful to be near. I remember a vibrant woman, not all that long ago, maybe a year or two, with enough gumption to stand up to my oft-stubborn father. Now I see her stretching very hard to reach plateaus of comprehension that may never be hers again. It is exceptionally frustrating.

I can only say this of and for myself, and myself alone- if I ever started going thru something similar, and was aware enough of the changes, I daresay I would end this life, rather that drift to the end. "Better to burn out than fade away."

It is in the end not the decaying of the body that bothers us most. I think it would be the creeping decrepitude of the mind that scares us.