Alzheimer's and dementia took my moms life

Hello, my name is Tess, the daughter, of a very special beautiful lady

, Melody Sue Bellows.

I said goodbye to my mother on June 11th this year. Although, of course, I had been saying

goodbye to her long before the day her body finally caught up with her mind.

My long goodbye to mom began seven years ago, with the signs of emerging

Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

She was 57 when it started, and that was when she moved in with me. She was scared to be

by herself and knew then she needed me. She could talk at first, but her words were the first to

go. Being her daughter, we always had a special connection and could communicate without

words.

Even though we were living upside down and back to front, even though we had switched roles, as mom became the child and me the parent, we thought we were, to some degree, winning.

Because as a family, we adapted, mom's dementia was the thing we lived around. And that's

the thing. People with dementia find so many ways to live around their deficits that for so long,

though life is altered from what it once was, it is still essentially the same. Until the day it isn't.

Mom plateaued for so many years that when the decline came, it floored me. It was as if we

were meandering along and then, without warning, we just fell off a cliff.

Mom stopped eating and she would walk around constantly and then get lost. She stopped

eating. I tried everything. It was so heartbreaking. Finally my mind eased when I could finally get

her to drink Ensures. That too eventually stopped.

I had nothing else I could do but get her on hospice. She still stayed here at home. She lost so

much weight I could cradle her like a baby.

I was with her when she exhaled for the final time, telling her I loved her and it was okay to go.

We went the distance together, her and I, from the beginning of my life, to the ending of hers,

and there is no other place I would have been at that moment, then making sure that my

courageous mom left this earth knowing that she was loved.

I'm now for the first time asking for donations for my mom's cremation and celebration of life.

Her grand kids loved her deeply and to celebrate her life ,being able to say goodbye would help

us all tremendously. No donation is ever too small and it would mean the world to us.

Thank you for your time.