Mom

This is the first Mother's Day without my mom.

Dona Lee Liden Imholte passed away on February 9, 2009. In the months before she died, I took care of her as she suffered from Alzheimer’s and her body struggled to maintain her lifestyle of constant movement and work.

In the end, she depended on me,
not necessarily because I was her daughter,
because some of that went away with the disease,
but because she sensed that I understood her
and what she needed.
And I did.

Even though she didn’t know that I understood her because I was her daughter, it is indeed the reason.

I was always convinced we were so different. When I was young, I thought it was because I was adopted. When I got older, I thought it was because we had different worldviews. Now I know it doesn’t matter that we were different.

We were mother and daughter.

I think that Alzheimer’s is one of the meanest diseases one can suffer from, but it offered an opportunity for me to spend a lot of time with mom and to concentrate on her.

She needed me - and I needed her.

Because she was my mom.

And I was her daughter.