Twenty Years
I wrote this piece in July 2024, six months before my mother’s sudden passing. As painful as it was to watch her slowly fade, the finality of her loss has been even more excruciating. It has also forced me to confront a terrifying question: What if I’m next? What do I do if I only have twenty years left? What would you do?
This isn’t just the standard existential reckoning that follows a loved one’s death. My mother was the third woman in our family to succumb to Alzheimer’s. I look like her. We share the same blood type, the same allergies. To wonder whether I have only twenty years left with my mind intact isn’t an overreaction, it’s a stark reality.
The Pain - July 2024
It’s a pain that weighs on you, pressing down like something tangible. It’s so heavy, it feels too much to bear. I want to be able to box it up and set it aside, to get relief from carrying it. At times I feel I cannot anymore. I simply cannot hold the weight of it any longer.
She’s slipping away, and each day it happens faster. She no longer remembers to wear undergarments and has to be reminded to put them on.
The weight of her own sadness lies on the shoulders of everyone around her. She just wants to sleep all day. She can no longer cook—though she was an incredible cook. She knits the same formless shape, something like a scarf but which serves no functional purpose, and she can’t read. When she plays Scrabble, which was always one of her favorite games, she makes up words.
Dementia really is cruel. Mom is the third generation of women in my family to face this fate. Although she was older than her mother and her mother before her, she’s still not even 80.
The Fear
And that’s where, selfishly, I begin to think about myself. I think, wow - I might have what, twenty years of my faculties left? Twenty years. That’s not enough time. Twenty years… what will I do with that time? Some days, it feels pointless. Other days, I remind myself: You can’t change it. You cannot control the future. So, what will you do with the time you have? Two decades will go by in a heartbeat.
The pain of watching someone you love become a stranger - moving through life like a ghost of herself - is cruel. It feels almost worse than death because you have to relive a new death of sorts every day as they continue to lose their sensibilities, with new developments popping up regularly. Say goodbye to the ability to play games with her. Say goodbye to the long talks. Say goodbye to the support she used to give you when you felt your own life was spiraling out of control. Say goodbye to holidays and vacations, meaningful phone calls, delicious homemade meals, and organized visits.
The person you knew and loved is gone. The person you see today may be different tomorrow. And what do you do with the pain?
The pain. I carry this pain like a backpack I can never remove. It’s woven into me, whether I like it or not: heavy, relentless, but sometimes, strangely, propelling me forward.
What would you do if you knew you only had twenty years left?