The Gifts of Dementia - Thoughts from Connie

on the occasion of her mother's memorial service

July 17, 1999-Bowdoin College Chapel

As many of you know, Mother was experiencing the deteriorating effects of

dementia.

I want to speak to you of the gifts I felt this disease brought to our family.

While many tend to look with sadness upon changes that come in the course
of our lives, my orientation is to look at the beauty, to ascertain how the
loving nature of things is working its magic upon our hearts and spirits.

As what we consider to be the crucial aspects of our personality fell away

with the loss of her memory, mother moved into a state of being that was
innocent, childlike endearing, funny and adventuresome. Without the
trappings of the mind, she came into the present. Aspects of her personality
came to the fore that had been hidden behind the armor that protects our
hearts and allows us to fit into a way of life that we see as appropriate and
good, but which perhaps does not serve us at deep levels.

Instead of mourning the loss of what had been, her family, each in their own
way, moved into new roles, new ways of being and thinking that would
never have been considered without the impetus of a dramatic, life-
threatening disease.

Her condition demanded that we move out of a fast-paced life and become
patient, loving nurturers-very present and very conscious each of her waking
moments.

We came home to Maine where mother's life came in full circle after being
away for so many years. We spent time with the people who meant so much
to her, and to whom she meant so much. Our social calendar was full
visiting and being visited by friends and family. It meant so much to her to
feel loved and connected. When she left the dining room at the Highlands
on the stretcher she waved goodbye to Happy Aldred, one of her mother's
best friends who had seen my grandmother Connie through her last days and
who had eaten dinner with us that night, and whose presence had meaning
for Mother we can only guess at.
And so I honor the circumstances that gave me so much heart-centered
quality time with my mother and I am thankful for the way her life on Earth
ended, with the beauty and dignity that she embodied as a model of
graciousness, service and kindness.

Thank you for coming today and thank you for the love you have given our
family over the past 50-80 years.