After

After she's gone, ironically the memories linger.

The feelings I had being her caregiver just don't fade away. They were infused with so much emotion that they've stuck around like some weird version of muscle memory. It's reflexive. Sometimes intrusive. Always sad.

I keep waiting for another shoe to drop, the next worse thing to happen.  For her to call me at 2 in the morning, panicked because she sees my dad unconscious on the floor or in pain, asking if she should  call 911.

Or waiting for the time she'll call saying she can't find him, he must be lost, scared he can't get home. Should she call the police?

He passed away in 2004. She hallucinated him in 2012-13, often.

She and I made a promise early on in the disease: I would ALWAYS tell her the truth-about the things that truly mattered, like my dad being gone. So, every time she hallucinated him, I had to tell her he was gone. It gutted me, every time. She'd cry, I'd cry. We'd be a mess. But she would always tell me that she was grateful to know he was ok in heaven; not lost or in pain because that would be worse. Then I'd cry even harder as she asked me for his death date to put on a sticky note by the phone to remind herself it was a hallucination. She missed him profoundly, and she was so sick.

Sundowners affected Mom deeply in Fall and Winter. Overcast days confused her to bits. She couldn't figure out what season it was, let alone what time. Overcast days in Fall looked like Spring and 4pm looked like 8am.  I'd come over after work and she'd offer me breakfast sincerely thinking it was morning instead of evening. So we'd have pancakes, eggs and fruit, call it good. It never did any good to argue.

Now when it's overcast, the first thing I think is that Mom's going to have a tough day, totally forgetting she's gone, still in caregiver mode. Then I just miss her, my sadness hanging over me like the gray Michigan clouds. Makes my hungry for eggs at dinner.

She forgot that any of this happened, and I can't forget.