Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.
Recounting an incident that happened in 2022.
I asked my mother to "Please forgive me" She had wanted to start the washing machine the night before. However, I told it was not necessary because my husband would be running it later on.
She was upset with me because she thought I was ‘shouting’ at her. I was ignorant that my tone of voice was a bit harsh and not gentle.
I asked my mother to forgive me because I did not know that she was offended by what I said and that she felt that I had raised my voice.
The trajectory of dementia is a downward trend But I am grateful that it can be a slow decline of 6-11 years if there is not acute infection or events like falls that may set in to cause a sudden deterioration.
However, I am mindful that I must always reconcile and maintain a loving relationship with her, providing her a good quality of life at home.
I forgive her who is unable to show any empathy and sometimes can only see certain issues so urgently without situation awareness. For example, she is anxious about her watch not working properly and burged into the room when my husband is conducting his meeting. She is living in a different world, oblivious to the one we are living in.
I say thank you to my mother who still try to help me cut vegetables for my meal preparation. I thank her for buying eggs for us when she realised that we are running low on eggs. I thank my mother too for buying things for us as an expression of her love for us.
I love you mother because you are my mother.
I love you and glad that we are able to spend quality time together thus far.
When our loved ones lose the ability to find the right words or loses the vocabulary, we can continue to express our love. We can continue to say the 4 things that matter most. By Dr Ira Byock
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