12 Comments
Feb 14, 2023Liked by Kathryn DeFea

Thank you for this. I lost both of my in laws last year, within a 2 week period. We dealt with all of the same exact things you wrote about. It is so hard, and yet, knowing their love for each other, our memories of that love, and knowing they're together again today with no suffering, is a true blessing. God's blessings to you and your family.

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That's not a gentle fog....

Dementia is something I would not wish on even the ones I most despise. My mom and maybe my sister are going through dementia. It's a shitstorm for survivors who have to watch the decline of the experiencers.

Thank you for this essay.

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Thanks for writing this, Kathryn. It increased my understanding of the inevitable stage of life that we experience with our loved ones, and fear for ourselves. Dementia is having one foot in reality, and the other in an imaginary world. Are the “victims” suffering? Certainly, we as the interested witnesses do, as a result of our inability to comprehend and adjust.

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Feb 14, 2023Liked by Kathryn DeFea

All I can say is how lucky he was to have had you as his daughter.

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Feb 14, 2023Liked by Kathryn DeFea

So sorry for your loss Katie! I've lost 2 friends and my step-grandma to dementia. Something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy

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Feb 15, 2023Liked by Kathryn DeFea

Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing.

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Maybe your dad was engaging with your physically deceased mom in the spiritual world?

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My Mom was Welsh. But she left Wales as a war bride and lived in California and Canada for the next 45 years until she died. Lung cancer went into her brain. She had lost her native language decades before. She grew up speaking Welsh. In her final days, when she was barely speaking, it came back. She chattered away in Welsh. Once a day or so before she died she became very alert and said ‘oh they’re all here singing!’ We asked who and she said all her Welsh friends were in a choir singing hymns to her. .

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Feb 15, 2023Liked by Kathryn DeFea

Wow! What a beautiful, poignant, painful essay! Dementia seem so much harder on the ones around the sufferer than on the sufferer him or herself. Your deep love of your dad shines through the frustration and increasing grief of gradually losing him to the "gentle fog." As does his love for you and, especially, for your mom.

Beautifully written, beautifully expressed. You're one of those very rare people: an accomplished scientist with the depth and breadth of perception of an artist.

I'm so sorry you lost your dad, and thank you for writing this essay!

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