By Eleanor Kazdan, February 18, 2019 — My mother had always been eccentric and difficult. You might say she marched to a different drummer. She started running at about age 47 and became a marathon runner, completing 37 marathons up to age 80.
Around the time my mother was 80, she began to act even more strangely than normal. Once she picked me up at the subway station and didn’t seem to know the way back to her house. It was a terrifying drive. Another time, while crossing the street, she didn’t understand the walk signals. Then there was the day of her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. By that time we knew that my mother’s mind was failing. I had reminded my father to make sure she had suitable clothes to wear that morning. When we came to pick her up, she came downstairs dressed in a jogging suit. Frantically, I went up to her bedroom to round up some party clothes. I hadn’t set foot in that bedroom for years. To my shock, it was in complete disarray with pies of clothes, plastic bags, and old papers covering the floor. By the grace of God, I was able to find nice dress and a pair of shoes in the clutter under the bed.
After much prodding, my parents moved to a seniors apartment complex. Six months later, my father suddenly died and my mother moved to an assisted living facility. About 2 weeks after my father died, my mother called me and said, “Eleanor, do you remember this old boyfriend I used to have called Aaron Kazdan?” I felt a knife in my stomach. “Mom, Aaron was your husband for 60 years.”
Although my mother barely remembered my father, she thrived at the facility.
She had a boyfriend. They sat in the lobby for hours holding hands and believed they were married. One day her boyfriend disappeared. He had gone to a nursing home.
As terrible as my mother’s decline was, it gave me a chance to like her a little more. Dementia had smoothed out her rough edges and made her a sweet person.