“How would you like to have nothing?”

Those are the words my deranged mother spoke to us as she was leaving my sister’s house where we had all gathered for a visit.  She had suffered from some form of dementia for several years.  The true cause of her dementia was never diagnosed, but did it really matter?  Mom was lost to all of us but still able to communicate her feelings about her miserable existence.

The truth, as we now all know, is that she was completely and totally miserable in her situation and chose to escape it by leaving reality.  The words that we thought were the ramblings of a demented woman were words that would sadly become her children’s mantra.

“How would you like to have nothing?”

The truth is, it really sucks.  Life should consist of more than putting on false faces and pretending to be happy when the reality is that you aren’t.  Life should consist of having friends and family who know you well enough to know when you are shattering into millions of pieces.  But when you are demented, no one takes you seriously.

No one takes you seriously when you are in obvious pain from symptoms that could be a heart attack, because you are just a demented woman.  Oh, she’s just talking crazy, couldn’t be that there is really something wrong.  Sure she doesn’t know our names any more, but she still can communicate that she is having terrible back pains.  But no one listens to her anymore, truly listens anyway.

And 12 hours later she is dead.  At least now she is not in a place where she has nothing.  Now she is in a place where she has everything.

But now we have nothing. 

And to answer her question – “How would you like to have nothing?” – it sucks.

We no longer have Mom.  We had essentially lost her years ago, but now she is gone.  And because of the man she married who caused her pain and misery, we have nothing to show of her life.  No piece of memorabilia, no old photographs, no rights to look at her things and maybe walk away with a small keepsake that takes us back to a time when Mom was Mom.  Instead we are denied the basic courtesies to go through Mom’s meager things and remember.  Maybe to heal.  To have our family go piece by piece through things that have ties to her that could cause us to remember her.  To share stories.  To laugh.  To cry.