A daughter notices cognitive changes in her mother, a former geriatrics nurse.

Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN.

This month’s Reflections essay, “In Full Bloom,” is a gentle, humane exploration of what it’s like when an aging parent shows signs of cognitive decline. Author Diane Fraser deftly weaves memory, incident, and reflection together in this bittersweet one-page essay.

She describes her mother’s dawning realization of the hard reality of her own aging. “I’m old,” she said. “I’m really old.”

And then later, perhaps also alluding to her worsening dementia:

“I didn’t think it would happen to me. . . Those were my patients. This is me.”

There’s a family birthday party. An annual visit to a lilac festival where the author begins to find certain aspects of her mother’s behavior puzzling.

This is all described with lightness and respect. It’s just how it is, the author seems to suggest. We might as well make the best of it.

She remembers the sometimes bawdy stories her mother, a former geriatrics nurse, would tell about her patients when she  and her sister were teenagers. And the love her mother so evidently had for these patients.

The shock of role reversal.

Now their roles are becoming reversed and she wishes she’d listened more closely to those stories. She writes:

“I wish I could go back and ask my younger mother all the right things to do for someone who’s showing signs of dementia.”

Many of us have aging parents who are showing various signs of cognitive decline. Others may be nurses who work with older adults. We hope you’ll take a few minutes from your day to read this short essay, which is free for the month of November. To listen to this and other Reflections columns as podcasts, click here.