Coming to terms with my mom's decline

My mother is 40 years older than me, so I've been preparing for the reality of losing her when I'm still in my 40s or 50s. What I never prepared for was her congnitive decline, and I'm finally having to come to terms with it. This is going to get long, so apologies in advance. I think I just need to write this out.

I'm 47, my mom will be turning 88 in February. She's always been extremely sharp, mentally, and has also looked around 20 years younger than her actual age. She has youthful interests, was always active on the internet and good with tech, a voracious reader, and loved science fiction and geeky stuff. People who talk to her on the phone will often assume she's in her 30's... though recently, that's changed.

There are a lot of reasons why it never occurred to me that she might have any sort of cognitive issues. There's the natural denial and burying my head in the sand, of course, but she also has a condition which causes progressive visual impairment. These days she can barely see at all. She's always been opinionated and argumentative, all of which has made it very difficult to notice what is now, unfortuately, obvious.

It's clearly been a gradual thing, but I think the first real alarm bell rang for me when she got my birthday wrong last year. It was subtle, so we just laughed it off. We were talking about my plans for the week, and she hinted that the 22nd was a special day... but while my birthday is on the 22nd, it's in June, not May. When June came around, she got the day wrong again couple of times, which did start to concern me, but I wrote it off as her being upset that she got it wrong the first time. Which... yeah.

I've noticed other little things here and there, but kept finding excuses for them. She got the dates of appointments mixed up, insisted we'd discussed things we hadn't, and got angry with her doctors when she felt like they weren't listening to her. But, well, sometimes doctors don't listen. Again, I ignored it. My second alarm bell rang when she told me she was out of antibiotics (she'd had an infected tooth treated), which I thought was odd. I then realized she'd taken 4 times the recommended dosage, which was alarming... but what really scared me was when I spoke to her dentist, and he told me mom had already done this once before. She'd hidden it from me.

After that, I was on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I'd tell myself she was fine, then notice something; rinse and repeat. She was in and out of the ER for various ailments, which took a toll on both of us, but things settled down in November.

Then came Christmas.

Every year, I come to her place and help decorate around the 20th. On the 23rd, my husnad and I celebrate our anniversary. I go to mom's house for dinner on Christmas Eve, spend the night, and then my husband joins us for Christmas Day to have brunch and open presents with us. We then visit my husband's family. This has been the routine for 20+ years.

This year I came over on the 20th as usual. On the 23rd I spoke to her on the phone, and mentioned the restaurant my husband and I were going to. She paused, then said "but when are you coming over to clean the rest of the guest room?" She swore up and down I'd said I was coming over to do more cleaning, which obviously makes no sense. We chalked it up to a misunderstanding. Again.

On Christmas Eve she didn't change before dinner, which is fine, but also a first. What was much more jarring was the fact that she started eating before I finished setting the table. When my husband drove us home on Christmas Day, I was very upset, but still not sure what was wrong.

New Year's Eve is what settled it. I was at a party with friends, and called mom at midnight, as usual. Firstly, she said "congratulations" rather than "happy new year," and then started talking to me like I'd called her on a regular afternoon. She talked about the flowers I'd sent her in a way that made me wonder if she realized they were from me - all disconcerting.

On New Year's day she called me first thing in the morning and said she was returning my call. She then told me she hadn't slept all night, because of what I'd said when I called at midnight. "You said you don't have time to help me anymore, and that things are going to change." When I insisted I'd said nothing even remotely like that, she got upset and angry, and accusatory. I spent the rest of the day in what I can only call grief. It finally hit me.

That was 2 weeks ago, and it's been up and down since. But I'll stop there, it's already way too long. If anyone has read this far - thank you.