Year in the Mirror

A rearview glance back at my year. I'm ready to move on.

I am accelerating. Calm music plays on the radio; a Christian balm of tunes that I find uplifting and soothing. I need that. I glance in the rearview mirror and try not to cringe as the images start to blur. Thank goodness. That was a hard year. A sad year.

Health scares and the cruelty of life has taken one of my cousins as he lost his battle with cancer on December 19. That crushing blow is still very much a wound as the funeral is in six days on January 9. We can't leave it all behind. Some things linger into the new year.

My aunt and uncle are shattered and their pain radiates out. My uncle has had several strokes over the course of the year and it has effected his memory. Doctors say it could lead to dementia. His ups and downs have made losing my cousin Sam all the more difficult. My aunt has had to split her time and attention between my cousin and my uncle. The dementia makes him self-centered and needy and he often picks fights with my aunt to get her attention back.

My mother's dementia has had its own ups and downs. Dementia is a moving target. Each day another slice of my mother's chaotic journey. I am along for the ride, whether I want to be or not. She even called the police on me one night when she thought I was the "bad Carolyn". She wanted me to leave. That's difficult since I live with her and was feeling sick. After 6 hours of her spinning and perseverating over something... I can't even remember what exactly. She was dissatisfied with the police response and wanted me to turn myself in and get myself tested. Funny now, terrifying then.

I still feel the trauma of it, but she can't remember the incident at all. That is the most frustrating part. It did manage to get the ball rolling for services as I could really use the help. But I need her to acknowledge she needs the help and she refuses to say 'yes'. This leaves me feeling even more alone and isolated as I make this journey with her.

I have managed to get her to drink less wine. At the beginning of the year she was drinking a bottle of wine a day and finishing it in just over an hour. This was not a fabulous situation because once she fell asleep on the couch she wouldn't wake up until she pissed herself. Incontinence is a bitch and it gives me a lot of work.

It doesn't help that our Ontario Premier made wine and beer available in grocery and convivence stores. Now I have to think about where I can take her to get her out without getting access to the wine.

I now stay with her when she goes out to a restaurant. Earlier in the year, I could drop her off and let her get a cab home. But I find she gets muddled with money and that combined with drinking too fast and getting drunk, make it unsafe for her.

When I go with her, I ask the server not to bring the wine until the food arrives. This way she drinks more slowly and gets some food into her. It also makes the experience better for me. Now I just need to get her showering and washing her hair so she looks and smells better. Having a meal out when you can smell urine - and she can't - is not a pleasant experience. She hasn't had a shower since November 27... the day before my cousin Sam's 35th birthday party. A party she refused to go to because she is anxious about what others will think of her now that she can't remember things.

This is why I need help. Having someone else cuing her to practice better hygiene may be more successful because why would she want to do what her daughter tells her to do?

And don't get me started about her days and nights being mixed up.

Anyway, this is just a snapshot of life living with dementia.

All of these things overshadowed all the good that came with 2025. Things like getting some of my online presence back (after 2024s identity theft in January). The trauma of having my online stuff stolen makes me paranoid when it comes to others trying to take advantage of my mother. That is a stress I don't appreciate. I practice awareness and question things a lot more that I used to.

My writing has gone okay, but the lingering theft also effects things. I am working at regaining my peace of mind and my accounts. In time I will write about my situation and warn others to take precautions and be vigilant.

I'm sure there were other accomplishments and good times and laughter. There always are. I have tried to stay positive and put up boundaries to protect myself from the more corrosive aspects that life throws my way. Have I been fully successful in that arena? No, but I am improving and that is the point. Small steps add up over time. I just need to be patient to see the results. I breathe deeply as I remember that.

I am going forward. Leaving the past behind. I can't change it. I need to let it go. Take the lessons and forge my way into the future. I can only see where the headlights illuminate, but I've heard you can make the whole trip that way. Not sure if that was Ray Bradbury or Stephen King that said that, but either way, I appreciate the analogy whether it be writing or life.



Word Count = 959 words.

Notes ▶︎

Written for "The Writer's Cramp"  (The Writer's Cramp) - due January 4 by 11:59 am.
Please write a story or poem that has the title: "Year in the Mirror"
Please select "Biographical" as one of your genres!