I started this blog more than four years ago. It was a way for me to share the experiences of living with and caring for my mother, Marion, who was suffering with Alzheimer’s. The purpose was a bit unplanned and sometimes complicated. I hoped to honor the mother I knew in the places where I found she still existed in her everyday life. To share a common experience with those who could identify with my circumstances and maybe help them (and me), to not feel isolated or alone in their process. But it became most beneficial to me as a place I could go to express the joys and sorrows I shared with my mother, the frustrations of dealing with such a devastating disease and most surprisingly, to serve as an avenue of my expression of wonder.

A wonder, that after all that was lost to my mother, my family and to me, through all of this, we could still find happiness in what my mother continued to understand, enjoy and experience in her mind. A wonder that although her brilliance was diminished, enough still shone through to give mom a life that had meaning, experienced love, created laughter, enjoyed music and made song. A life that if not planned, was at least one that could find joy in the simplest moments and most unexpected of places.

It was a wonder that through her disease, mom managed happiness, and expressed it daily with her love and good humor. Moms happiness was shared by the people around her, old and new alike, who experienced her radiance. It was a wonder to me, who was sure all that was lost could never be replaced, yet was proven wrong by this woman who made me laugh, gave me hope and looked at me with eyes full of a mothers love, even when she could not remember my name.

All these years later, after writing of all the sorrows, anger and frustrations, it will be the joy and the wonder that will be my final memories of my moments with Marion. Now that my mother has passed and her spirit and soul are free from disease and in the stars of the universe, I am left in amazement, at the laughter, the smiles and the happiness she continued to share with everyone she touched, until the final days of her life.

It was the greatest honor to have the mother that was given to me. I will forever carry her in my heart and find comfort in the memory of mom’s laughter, her smile and her song. Each day, when the sun sets and the stars begin to shine, I will look up with wonder. A wonder that was born in Marion, who never let disease diminish her brilliance and showed me that happiness is not a state of mind, but a way of living. That like the stars, happiness can be brightest in the darkest of times.

My mother made life wonderful …… and I will miss her all the days of mine.