Imagination

Now for the second of the two notes from facebook originally addressed to the Fantastical Lit class, seeing Mom's dementia through the lens of, well, fantastical lit.

"Imagination." It was written on 10-12-11, based on the class session from 10-5-11, "The Journey," which was based on The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as on the movie version of The Two Towers, and Greenwitch and The Grey King by Susan Cooper (books three and four of her five-book "The Dark Is Rising Sequence," respectively). Here it is:

I keep relating the Fantastical Lit discussions to Mom's dementia. This week I didn't think of anything particularly insightful -- pretty much just, "memory loss = bad," but the questions from last week are still haunting me.

I hate to keep bringing up an illustration so negative, but... obviously it's very important to me. And it feels a bit odd to talk about this very much with a group of people I don't know very well yet, but... I keep thinking about it. And it's tied in with our discussions.

So here's what I keep wondering: I can imagine a time when my mom won't recognize me anymore. But should I? Will it help me make peace with her illness? Would I stop mourning each new milestone, each major piece of memory she loses, and would that be good? Would I then be able to be more grateful for all the things she still remembers, right now? Or, imagining the degeneration, would I become more like Denethor?

How do I keep both "the world shouldn't be like this" and the preparation for the inevitable in my head? By focusing on the good in the midst of the evil?

May I never grow callous and bitter,
May I never cease to protest.
For the world ought to be beautiful
For the world, it shouldn't be so.

The world is beautiful. But not as it should be.

Thoughts, comments? I really would like input from others on this one.