My mother is like a toddler now. Stumbling around, getting too close to danger, flitting about from spot to spot for brief periods until she gets bored and she stagers off to another station. She has always had bad balance and was prone to falling, and the deterioration of her brain exacerbates this. She gets cold, and when you try to cook something on their stove, she will walk up and try to warm her hands over the burner.

"Hot," you would tell a toddler, "No." You would teach a child this is dangerous and they would learn not to put their hands too close to the fire. I can remember her teaching me this same lesson. "Burny, burny," she would say.

But my mother is not a toddler. She has lived 76 years and does not want to be spoken to this way. If you try to talk to her like this, she cannot absorb the lesson and will look at you like you should go directly to hell. If you try to take her arm and lead her away she will lock up and refuse to move and, God love her, (as my Mom would say), she is 4' 6" of iron strength. It's like she has gathered up an entire incarnation worth of physical power just to cement herself to the kitchen floor so she can stand exactly where she wants to stand, and you, can go, directly, to hell.

When you have a toddler you can sit with them and look at a book and show them important things you want them to know and then get excited when the kid says it back to you. This happens in reverse with my mother. She looks at family pictures and they are just filler on the pages. She and I were looking through photos and a picture of my husband came up. "Him," she said "I know him. He is good." I thought this was funny because I always said I married my husband because he reminded me of my mother. They have the same style of integrity and loyalty and commitment to justice. And yes, it is true that he is a good man. And he will still be a good man the next time she sees his picture, but chances are, she will no longer know this.

It is interesting the things my mother retains. The last time she was in the hospital, which was because she had another seizure and fell forward and broke her nose, she and I were alone in the hospital room for a while and she would occasionally try to communicate something to me but I just wasn't getting it. Finally a commercial came on and she looked at the tv and said "TOOTHBRUSH!" Well shit, get this woman a toothbrush STAT! She sat in her bed and brushed with that same sort of muscle memory driven rhythm that I had seen her do a lifetime ago. She ties her shoes the same way she always did. But I can hardly stand to watch her do that because her balance is so bad I'm afraid she's going to bend over and take a header.

When I told her recently that I am her daughter, I also told her "You have been a wonderful mother."

"What did I do?" she asked me.

"Well," I said, "you were fun, and loving, and generous… "

"Gen…? Gener…? What is that?" She was studying my mouth as I repeated the word, trying to watch and learn and repeat it herself. But it got all tangled up in there and never made it's way back out of her.

"It means you gave people everything you had," I said.

"I don't know what you are saying," she said, as she finally gave up.

Like a toddler, my mother uses her handful of words to share her dissatisfaction with you. "DON'T TAKE MY SHOES OFF!!" she hollered at my Dad and I as we tried to get her wet socks off after she stepped in a puddle. Trying to explain to her why she needed new socks was pointless, so he tried to distract her while I tried to peel the wet ones off. But she wiggled and kicked in an effort to keep them on. We finally got the new socks on her. "Those were bitches, weren't they?" she asked as she glowered at us.

Yep, Mom. They were.

And also like a small child, she is sweet, and loving, and wants to be touched kindly and cuddled. When she was in the hospital she patted her bed, inviting me to get in with her. I did, and we sat and watched tv, and I had to change the station away from the news my Dad had on because something on there exploded and frightened her and she shouted "FIRE!" And I couldn't stand watching the hospital tv station that only showed sunflowers because I thought it was too stupid, so we turned on the food network and watched a woman peacefully and passionately make a delicious looking pasta bolognese, and we held hands while she rested her head on my shoulder.