World Mental Health Day - 7th story: It almost broke my heart

The 10th of October marks World Mental Health Day - leading up to it, I've decided to share a series of blogs I've written in the past years, and shared with my friends and colleagues at Swiss Re, about my parents fading away, my dad's passing, my brother's suicide, my mom's dementia.

I'm sharing these blogs here in the hope that they help raise awareness to the many invisible burdens we carry, and that they may give someone out there the courage to open up. Whatever you're going through, know that you are not alone - and that's what you'll experience when you let someone know. More about the rationale for sharing these stories.

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It almost broke my heart

(Shared internally as is at Swiss Re on 4 December 2017)

It was a month ago. I had to take my mom to a nursing home. It had been coming. For a long while, that dreadful moment had been creeping closer and closer, like an unstoppable monstrous creature, in plain view, with a gaping mouth that would eventually swallow my mom.

For the past two years Mom was able to still live in the family home thanks to the excellent care. Visits by nursing staff, taking care of everything, for her and with her, made it possible. With that and family visits, she was fine ... but dementia took its course.

This summer Mom complained about excruciating pains in her lower back. She didn't know why. An MRI or some such showed that there were recent and older lesions to her spine. We figure she must have slipped down the stairs more than once but, just like everything else, she forgot about the falls - what remained was the pain. With medication and rest her back would improve again, the doctor suggested, and said that it would be best for her to take a room at the nursing home for a few weeks. There she would have elevators and constant attention. So, a month ago, I was there and I packed some things and told my mom what the doctor had said - that it was going to be "a kind of a vacation" until her back had improved. The reality of such a move was clear, however. Once out of the house, she would likely never return. I felt terrible.

I continue to visit her every weekend. By now, what was "a vacation" has indeed become permanent. And, thankfully, a son's fears have vanished. We have decorated her room with pictures and frames and a rug and an easy chair and flowers. Stuff from the house. From her balcony she looks right at her old school and the village church. The home is filled with people whose names she doesn't remember but whose faces look familiar - they are men and women who once were children with her, who played in the same kindergarten, feared the same teachers, made out in the same places, sang in the same choir and danced at the same feasts. And so my heart didn't break. Now, my mom smiles. She's not lost in this place, she feels safe, comforted, at ease. She feels ... at home.

One thing that really helped me getting over my feeling terrible (for taking Mom away from the house and into the nursing home), was asking her questions. Every once in a while, during a recent lunch, I would drop a question about the house. Did she miss it? The place she had lived in with her family for forty years? Could she describe it? What did it look like, outside, inside, the garden, the kitchen ... to my surprise, it - was - all - gone. When I asked her to describe the house, she described the house she had grown up in as a kid, a house that no longer exists but one I remember well from my own childhood visits. When asking about the garden, she described the old vegetable patches her mom and grandparents tended and when asking about the neighbors she talked about the folks from the time of the first 20 years of her life.

So that's that. My mom's in the nursing home and it's good. Really good. She remembers the old days and here's she's reunited with the people from those very same old days. A lot of what constitutes the span of my life has gone from her mind. Never to be accessed again. But she's content, she smiles, she laughs, she jokes around and, for now, she remembers her son. It is what it is. Things could be better, things could be a lot worse. In a way, in a melancholy sort of way, I'm happy, because the monstrous creature that had come to swallow my mom ... has turned out to be a purring, comfort-giving kitten.