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Losing Someone Piecemeal

I am of an age now where many of my peers have lost one or both parents. Some of them have lost them gradually, to the ravages of cancer, of Alzheimer's, etc.  I have been in that position with respect to one of my parents for a little while with respect to dementia, and the illness has progressed in recent weeks. My siblings who live closest are doing all the work; I try to provide support from a distance with weekly conference calls with them as well as frequent calls to my parent.

There will be a big change shortly in the level of care in the facility seeing to my parent's needs as the dementia continues to progress. Phone calls are filled with long silences; letters and emails have long gone unread and I am a nine hour drive away, so I visit when I can.

Having this piecemeal loss of a parent has made me reflect a good deal on what makes me me, and what would remain if I suffered memory or cognitive loss. It's probably common for folk in academia to identify their self, their soul with their intellect. Mine has changed over time, with pleasing improvements and painful losses that feel as if they still balance out. 

I suffer from sleep apnea and before it was diagnosed suffered from deprivation of REM sleep that really degraded my mind and shook my self-confidence. I recovered with treatment but that alone was truly depressing; to lose more seems unbearable.

My other parent, dead over 16 years now, often spoke to me of preferring death to mental diminution.  (It was a stroke that took them, fairly quickly.) My faith tells me to let God choose the circumstances of my end but insofar as I have preferences I share them with my late parent.

It is hard losing my parent piecemeal; I truly dread losing myself.

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