On Grief and Dementia
This is incredibly upsetting. It is a video made by a man whose mother is a disabled woman. She has dementia. She has forgotten who she is and is happily eating an icecream. Her son begins questioning her about his identity and as he does so, the happiness slides from her face. She's increasingly anxious and his questioning turns to badgering. Cut to the son sobbing in the car. 'I feel like she has died,' he says. Yes, you do. And that is something that you will and must come to terms with because this is not about you. I had to learn that and confront my own ableism about the changes that happened to my mother after she'd had a stroke - I was impatient, resented her dullness and difficulty with doing things, hated that she could not remember things that she had remembered before. People will tell you that this is about 'grieving'. Sure you are 'grieving', in a way. You're (often) grieving the loss of something that has been...