Meditation Times with Elma: Navigating the Troubles Seas of Dementia: a Love Story

AN ODYSSEY THROUGH THE TROUBLED SEAS OF DEMENTIA

- A LOVE STORY

It had gone to episodes of sudden confusion and rage,

triggered by nothing I could ever identify. Then paranoia,

people "upstairs in our home" to be taken care of somehow.

I told her: "We're in a new season. We've never been old

before. We've got to learn to trust God in this time too."

The discharging nurse's last greeting was: "It'll get worse . . ."

"Keith", she said: "Don't be afraid. It's going to be all right."

She was unbelievable-reassuring me.

By then she had lost almost all of her abilities-even to hold a

fork or to scratch her own nose.

She initiated her own blink signals: one for "yes", two for

"kisses", three for "I love you". Dance?-o yes, we still danced.

Jitter-bug moves-seated. If you were watching, probably

pretty comic. .

It's this period, three years of the Last Season, that began to

hold a sweetness for us.