July 20, 2025
Dear Dementia,
Over the years I have tried to understand why my cousins ran from you. I will never know the answer. I can speculate a lack of care, indifference, fear, self-centeredness, but I will never know for certain.
So many families are torn apart because of you. People run from you and in doing so, run from those they love. I know I have spoken of this before, but I have been thinking of my own family recently. I had a cousin that never visited my grandmother, and on her deathbed had to call to ask where she was living. Some only saw my grandmother when it was convenient or when their parents took them to see her or brought her back to their house for a visit.
I hope you realize the damage you do, to not just a single person and their brain, but to the family. I think also of the daughter caught between caring for a mother and her children. Of the grandson moving in with his grandfather because the cost of care is too high. You bring out the challenges and gifts of intergenerational living, of the suffering that refines us, and the laughter that carries our life.
One cannot say, “dementia” and think only of one person. Even when the community and family vanish from one’s life after diagnosis, all who loved that person now are deeply impacted forever.
Until tomorrow,
Kate
