In the following piece I share with readers what I saw as I peered deeply into my mother's eyes when she was struggling with Alzheimer's Disease. The unspoken fear could not hide the intense feelings through the "windows to the soul":
Little Windows of Hell
As I penetrate the confused mind of my mother through her frightened eyes, I see beyond the lies and nonsense that flow from her lips and experience her naked fear and desperate loneliness.
Those eyes that once were pure, fearless innocence as her own mother bore her are now well worn conduits of vulnerability and sadness. What started out a free unboundedness, full of life, now conveys hopelessness and the prospect of impending death.
She covers her plight and desolation by a contrasting mixture of fawning niceness and vile anger and bitterness as her powerlessness drains the last life blood of her fading personality.
Rare glimpses of her real self are a delight for her and all of us who adore her, a relief from the seemingly never-ending suffering and a joy to witness. Her hunger for human intercourse and the temporary transformation when she finds someone to listen to her are testimony to her love of people and her last remaining hope, maybe her only reason to live.
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