What Happened in That Chair
I sat down and felt two things arrive almost simultaneously.
First — disappointment. Deep, suffocating, total disappointment. The kind that doesn't announce itself dramatically. It just settles over everything like weight.
Then — anger.
Not just at the situation. At her. Why did she develop dementia? Why couldn't she just stay there peacefully? Why couldn't she stop giving us more to carry?
But I am also not going to pretend it wasn't real. Because pretending emotions don't exist is precisely what keeps people stuck in them. The anger was real. I felt it fully. And then I let it rest.
Because I knew there was no immediate answer. And I knew that acting from anger would cost more than the situation already had. So I sat. And I waited for something to shift.
My Wife and Her Plants
My wife was on the balcony. She didn't know what had just happened. She was watering her plants, moving slowly and deliberately between them, pausing to admire each one — completely present in that quiet, unhurried act of nurturing.
The world outside might have been unravelling. Mine certainly felt like it was. But she was there, tending to something alive, giving it what it needed to grow.
Life goes on. Even when yours has just been upended, somewhere nearby, someone is tending to something that needs care. The plants didn't know about the phone call. They just needed water. And she was there giving it.
I have a duty too. To nurture the life closest to me. Not because it is convenient. Not because the circumstances are ideal. But because nurturing — like her plants — is what keeps things alive.
I could not fall. I was needed. And somewhere in watching her tend to those plants, I remembered that.
The Victim and the Giver
Sitting in that chair, I had been feeling like the victim. The responsibility had fallen on me. The stress. The decisions. The weight of every development landing on my shoulders while I was also navigating a new job, constant travel, a year that had already taken more than its share.
But I was never the victim. I was the giver. And being the giver is not a burden — it is an opportunity.
The subject of this story was never me. It was my mother. An elderly woman with dementia, frightened and confused in a body and a mind that no longer behaved the way she expected. She needed someone to fight for her. Not to manage her situation from a distance. To fight for her.
So I got upfrom the chair.
Not because I had a solution. Only love. And action. And the belief that with both — I could create a possibility of a better future for her.
The Right Place
We found another home. Further from us than the first, which added its own weight. But it was the right place — properly equipped for dementia care, with trained staff, regular doctor visits, psychiatric medication managed correctly, and a structure that gave her mind something to hold onto.
Her face is calmer. She speaks about the past with accuracy. The shouting has stopped. Her mood has stabilised.
Recently, we brought her food she used to love. She tasted it. Looked up. And said the food was good.
A Wednesday With Yam Cake
I want to tell you about this Wednesday. Work was chaotic. A sudden customer issue had erupted and I was needed.
The old me — the version who still saw my mother's situation as a burden — would have used that chaos as the excuse not to visit. The justification would have written itself. I'm needed here. It's urgent. I'll go next time.
But the new me didn't feel the burden. Not this Wednesday. I felt something different — quiet and unhurried, but clear. Seeing her was the priority. I wanted to see her.
I stopped and bought some of her favourite snacks on the way. Yam cake. Something she used to love.
When I arrived, I sat with her. For a little while the world narrowed down to just the two of us. We talked. We reminisced. Some stories she could remember clearly. Some she couldn't. But she was present. And so was I.
She tasted the yam cake. She said it was nice.
What Consistent Giving Actually Does
We do not feel our way into new actions.We act our way into new feelings.
I did not wait until I felt like visiting before I visited. I visited. And the feeling followed. And then it grew. And now, on a chaotic Wednesday with work pulling at me from every direction — I wanted to go. Genuinely. Without forcing it.
- Your feelings
- Your actions
- Your willingness
- Your initiative
- Your thoughts
- Your expectations of what is possible between two people — even when one of them sometimes doesn't remember your name
This is not a lesson I found in a book. It is a lesson my mother taught me without knowing she was teaching it. By needing care at the exact moment I needed to learn how to give it.
She made mistakes raising me. Some of them left marks. And she is also the one who needs care now. Both things are true. And choosing to show up for her — with yam cake, with presence, with the willingness to sit quietly in a room where some stories are remembered and some are not — that choice has changed me more than anything I have read or studied or been taught.
If you are sitting somewhere right now with the weight of a responsibility that feels more like burden than opportunity — I want to offer you the question that changed everything for me:
Are you the victim of this situation — or are you the giver it is waiting for?
You do not need to feel ready. You do not need to feel willing. You do not need to feel anything other than the small, quiet decision to act anyway.
The feeling will follow the action. It always does.
And one day — on an ordinary Wednesday, in a quiet room, with a piece of yam cake — you will realise the burden became something else entirely. It became the reason you showed up.
R
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