2014-09-23 – We’re told to be in the moment. It’s very Zen. We’re told that we miss out on life if we either get lost thinking about the future or if we wallow in the past. The present is where we ought to be.

This past weekend, I had a chance to spend some time with my mother. My mother has dementia. She’s lost the future and much of the past. She’s lost so much of the flow of time that she has difficulty talking at all. She starts a sentence but . . .

She has a computer that . . . She recognizes faces and knows their . . . She’s confused about why they look so . . .

I think she intended to say “young.” You try to finish the sentences in your mind. You try to figure out . . .

She was in the moment. She listened to us talk rather than try to talk herself. She listened to me and my brother and sister and their spouses and her granddaughter. It didn’t matter what we said as long as we were together. And she ate a corned beef sandwich. She was happy. We who still live the thread of time were distressed. We, too, were there with our family. We talked more than listened. We ate our sandwiches.

Her loss of meaningful speech is called aphasia. She definitely can talk. There were times this weekend that she yakked away. There were whole phrases that made you think she was going to make a point. But she stopped and started new points. Or she continued in an entirely new language made up of English syllables but arranged differently.

She can still say “hello” and “goodbye” and “I love you” and “this is my son.” Those are in the moment.

* * *

Can you lie and still be in the moment? We’re all waiting for Diogenes Day, a day for truth, which we’ll be celebrating on October 1. Let your friends know. Find out more info by clicking the Diogenes Day link at the top of my blog page.