Losing Her More

This haiku rings so differently now.

I first wrote and posted this haiku in January of 2024. Now just 14 months later I’m struck by how much things have changed with Mother. Her dementia is more of who she is now, and who she was comes in glimmers less and less often.

When walking this walk with others I’m so comfortable with the listening and support. Now that it’s me, though, I have to let go of the things I have learned or “know” and sit with what I feel. I’m so grateful for our doula, Mary, who is a safe place for me to do that.

Missing her more than ever, I re-share “Losing Her”

As Mother leaves me

Not in body but in mind

I lose who we were.

She alone carried

The bits of life from before

My remembering.

I alone carry

The bits of life from before

Her own forgetting.