My mother is showing clear signs of dementia and I am moving away.

Hi, let me preface this by saying: I was on a long car ride with my dad today and we talked a lot about my mom. Now it all feels real.

I am turning 25 in two days and in about a month I’ll be moving away to get my masters degree. My mom has been showing poor cognitive functionality for a while now but the last two weeks she started to forget a lot. (The city I’ll be moving to even though we just came back from a potential flat I was looking at, certain names and dates, recent stuff etc.) She is oblivious to all this (or at least it seems that way) and all her life up till now she always said Alzheimers was her biggest fear.

I am afraid of not being able to see her every week. I want to be there for her and I am deeply afraid of the moment she will realise that she probably has dementia. A few years ago a doctor told her that she could develop it and she got suicidal.

I don’t even know why I am writing this but it all feels so real now. I thought I would have more time. More time to give her memories. She probably won’t really be there for the big milestones and it hurts like hell. On the one hand I feel like I failed her by being slow in life and not having achieved more like a family and a grandchild. On the other I feel so deeply sorry for my father who told me he will do everything for her, cause it is his duty as a husband. (They had a rocky marriage and there is not much love anymore.) In a weak moment he told me that this is it for him and that this is his life now. He doesn’t care about fulfilment or happiness anymore. He just does his duty. It hurts to see both my parents loose their future. It hurts that there is no hope whatsoever.

Fuck this disease and fuck fate