Our mother drifts in dementia’s tide.
It began as a whisper,
a slow unraveling of thought,
a gentle theft of memory.
At first, the forgetting was small—
keys misplaced, names delayed—
yet her voice still carried,
her hands still moved through daily chores.
But the tide rose higher.
It reached deeper into her mind,
and forgetfulness became her shadow.
She asked the same questions,
spoke the same words,
until repetition itself became her language.
She forgot our names,
forgot the faces of friends,
forgot the recipes that once made her kitchen sing.
Coffee, once her ritual,
slipped from her grasp.
She used to visit us each Saturday,
but the road dissolved before her eyes.
The car became a puzzle,
its door a mystery.
Even the simplest acts—
to bathe, to eat, to rest—
required our guiding hands.
And slowly, we faded from her memory.
“You are not my children,” she said,
“my children are still young.”
Sleep claimed her more and more.
Day and night blurred into silence,
and we woke her only to feed her.
It is sorrow to watch a woman
once full of vigor and grace
wilt and wither beneath this weight.
It is sorrow to see dementia
erase the map of her mind.
It is sorrow to call her “mother”
and hear no reply.
Now she stares with vacant eyes,
her gaze unfocused,
her spirit hidden.
We care for her tenderly,
though she no longer knows us.
She simply exists,
a body without recognition,
a soul caught in fog.
Still, we wish.
We wish for her voice to return,
to hear our names upon her lips.
We wish to draw her back
from dementia’s grip.
We want a miracle.
We hope for a miracle.
We pray for a miracle—
one that will give us our mother back.
