“How long have I been here?” My mother asks this frequently.

“Almost five months now.” I sound like a recorded message because I feel that way at this point. If my mother could retain anything she questions us about I’d have trained Alexa to answer everything she asks.

“Five months?” She shakes her head in seeming wonderment or frustration and turns to gaze out the kitchen window while I imagine she is lining up the followup questions that usually accompany the first. But I’m ahead of her.

“It’s nice outside this morning. You can take a spin around the garden with your coffee.” I know this is an effective distraction because she spends most of every day outside in the yard or on the front porch where she waves to passersby out walking their dogs.

When my sister and I flew to Florida to get Mom, we knew it wouldn’t be easy. We had learned that her husband left with only a text sent to my sister as an idea of what was going on. “I’m outta here. I can’t do this anymore” he wrote, or something even more blunt. Days passed before we could get to her and by that time, protective services had been contacted. We thought he’d come back because he had before, his behavior often erratic. I remember thinking we’ve got to get her out of there before he gets back because he had before.

A month later, he was dead. The lung cancer he had been treated for a year ago had metastasized to his brain. For my mother who suffers from dementia, this continues to be difficult to comprehend. She often believes she left him to visit family and that others would think her uncaring for not being with him when he passed away.

“Mom. He left you. He couldn’t take enough time to have a civil discussion with us about how to handle everything.” This only quiets her for a while because now she believes she was there when he passed and his errant son and she had become friends. They said their goodbyes to her husband together. That he’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery, quite a long way from where he’s actually buried.

In her more lucid moments, she realizes she has made this story up. She’ll become thoughtful for a time then ask, “What am I going to get?” I understand but ask her what she means anyway. “From the government. Because he died and he was a Vet.”

This is another point she becomes fixated on. Where’s the money. For someone who hasn’t had much in her life, this is always the point. No matter what she has, it has never seemed to be enough. “I marry a man thirteen years younger than me and he dies on me. If he wasn’t dead, I’d kill ‘im.” Sometimes she thinks this is funny and has repeated it to doctors, friends, people screening her for placement in assisted living — perhaps everyone she’s met since she’s been with us. All she’s ever really wanted is someone to take care of her.

She insists that she was pushed out of her family home and into marriage when she was sixteen. “Mom, it was pretty common for young women to marry right out of high school,” I tell her once more. “You were engaged as a senior and were married July after graduation.” I believe this is just another story she has made up to support the idea that no one has ever loved her or taken care of her.

“Which one was that?” she asks. It takes a moment to think about what she means before I realize she’s trying to sort out her four husbands. As much as I know her memory is shot, I have wondered if she pretends to confuse aspects of her life so she can keep me involved in a conversation she thinks she’s in control of. Otherwise, there is no conversation. She doesn’t read any longer. She only watches television when we’re with in the evening after dinner. To her, conversation is asking the names of grandchildren, getting the birth order of my brother, sister, and I correct, and trying to place which house she owned last.

Repeating myself to her endless questions is rarely if ever annoying. That is the smallest of issues that her cognitive decline has introduced. She has made jokes for years about having what she calls CRS which stands for Can’t Remember Shit. But I have known where she would end up. I just didn’t know it would be living in my house 3200 miles away and years from when it all began.

I hoped she’d be able to live more independently somewhere nearby before we moved across the country. Even then, about five years ago, not long after she’d moved to Florida with her last husband when they were talking about a divorce again, I thought she could rent a place a couple of blocks away. Somehow, the two always seemed to salvage whatever they could in their perpetually rocky relationship to stay married. He didn’t want to be alone. She wanted someone to take care of her. It isn’t the best recipe for success.

On good days with my mother, and good weather, the emotional meter registers low. She wanders through the yard and around the house smelling everything she can reach in spite of the fact that much of it will cause her nose to run. “Not everything is meant to have a scent, Mom, let alone a pleasant one.” But she sniffs anyway. She says it’s how she tells one plant from another. I know she can see well enough to determine a rose is a rose, but sometimes, poppies are roses, and the peonies? I finally told her they’re big pink flowers because nothing I said helped her remember. She likes being out in the yard as long as everything is green. The idea of spending an entire winter with her has filled me with dread.

When she arrived at the end of February, it was freezing and often, snow covered everything. “What kind of podunk place is this and how did you draw the short stick?” She wasn’t happy about any of it. “Are the leaves ever going to grow back? You know I’m an Arizona girl.”

I also know she hated living in Phoenix and appreciates nothing about a desert. She blames Phoenix for her red nose. Somehow, California, Florida, South Carolina, and Southern Spain remain blameless for the deplorable condition of her skin. Even now, I see her outside on a sunny day, face turned up to the sun, arms stretched out for maximum contact. She’ll kick off her shoes to sun her feet as well.

“Mom. You need sunscreen.”

“You know I can’t remember anything.” She lets me spray sunscreen on her and immediately pats where I’ve sprayed to wipe it on her face.

“Don’t get it in your eyes,” I remind her. She screws up her face and asks whether I think she’s stupid or tells me she’s not dumb. It’s anyone’s guess as to why her mood shifts down the nasty path. This would be the aspect of her dementia that is unnerving and often intolerable. I tell myself to walk away but it isn’t that easy. I seem to represent all that is wrong in her world at times.

At one point, she believed my husband and I kidnapped her. We stole her things and have them arranged in our house as if they were ours. She has spat at him and into the center of our TV room during one of her tantrums. She has gestured to herself obscenely. Thankfully now, only occasionally has she turned a middle finger, gnarled with arthritis, in my direction and told me to fuck myself — usually while taking the stairs up to her room. I tell her I’m not putting up with her shit and she calls me out on that word. “Seriously, Mom? And what mother tells her daughter to go fuck herself?” Usually this is followed by an accusation of our never having had a good relationship or a challenge about putting her in an institution. She has no memory of the six years she lived with us after my youngest son was born. She was his primary caregiver until he turned three.

Today she seems to be in a good mood but is confused. She has already forgotten the parade, picnic, and lobster dinner yesterday hosted by friends who always invite her. I remind her and she thanks me for doing so. She wonders where my husband is and when I mention he’s upstairs, she shakes her head. He had just been out on the porch with her watering the hanging baskets. She hasn’t followed me around the yard as she often does, or has wanted to help. I tell her she’s tired and that it’s okay to rest. Surprisingly, she has given in to that. Often, she doesn’t.

She won’t nap in spite of how tired she is. She believes she sleeps well, yet we believe she sits in the chair by her window and stares out regardless of the time. But it could be worse.

She might have fallen down the stairs in our old house which is quite dark in spite of several night lights. She requires no assistive devices such as a cane, a walker, or wheel chair. This seems to surprise doctors and administrators of the senior facilities I’ve toured. She makes her bed, she dresses herself, feeds herself if a meal is put in front of her, but will not prepare food for herself. “I’m not hungry” she has said. Or “I don’t eat breakfast.” On bad days, she will say it’s not her house. At least she has learned how to make her coffee. However, we’ve never had to show her how to make the Rum & Coke she loves every evening.

Most everything else is a challenge — like hygiene. The subject is a guaranteed argument no matter how it’s approached, so I let her take care of herself instead of helping now. I’ve taken the shower chair I purchased out of the bathroom because she prefers a bath no matter how many times I’ve encouraged her wash her hair and spray her body off first. Lining up a roll of paper towels, alcohol wipes, and cleaning spray on the back of toilets helps as a visual reminder, but not always. White towels also help, but there is no guarantee because of her poor vision. A Victorian sized bathroom upstairs between three adults has been a challenge — especially when constant cleaning has had to be done. And as much as she offers to do dishes, she has never offered to clean the bathroom. I think it’s just too embarrassing for her.

She wants to feed our 15-year-old cat who requires medication when she eats. We tell her this yet she feeds her anyway and probably would every time the cat yeowls, which is most any time someone enters the kitchen. She feeds the cat dog food, or a whole can of cat food. It’s another source of aggravation for my mother who tells me to write things down. “I’ve written things down for you before and you’ve removed the signs.” She’ll tell me she doesn’t remember that, which it code for I don’t believe you. “I know. That’s why I’m helping you.”

For those who have followed this story on social media, much of this probably seems redundant. I’ve expected to write more often simply because of the catharsis it provides me. But taking time to thoughtfully put something down when emotions change like wind direction on a blustery day? I was dreaming when I thought I could do that. At almost five months, I have time now because I need it as much as I need my garden. That more than anything has saved my sanity.

We’re waiting for a move in date for my mother to an assisted living community where she will be in memory care. I have doubts about whether this is the best placement for her, but many variables had to be considered. My doubt is based on what remains of my mother’s personality and not on whatever guilt I may feel. She has maintained she wants to be around “old people like her” and to have her own friends. That is what has guided me in my decision with the help of my sister and brother, spouses, friends. It takes a village, I guess.

Unfortunately, if my mother finds a friend one afternoon, she will not remember the next day. She says she lives one day at a time now and that it’s not all that bad. It could be worse. But I doubt she really believes that. “I told God I wanted to live to be 100 standing on my own two feet. Too bad I forgot to add my brain.” She laughs, shrugging.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” What else can I say?