Thank you so much for offering your remniscences about grieving, Dorian. 

In some ways, we also grieve as we watch our parents go through the process of dealing with dementia.  I admire my mother's courage, her effort to be cheerful despite her aches and pains, and her willingness to try to learn new things.  I imagine you have similar recollections of self-consciously "see"ing your mother go through her processes of facing her dementia.  It makes me so _know_ what I'm going to be losing as I watch my mother face her day-to-day experiences.  She still wants to help with dinner sometimes (she calls it "earning her keep"), and she still marvels at what's available on the internet (and she is working hard at learning her new computer, a laptop, which we got to replace her very old desk machine that could no longer handle the processing necessary for most programs).  She still does her jumble word puzzles (very expeditiously, which amazes me), and she tries (but has difficulty succeeding) doing crossword puzzles.  She reads and reads. 

As I watch her do these activities, I can't help but wonder *when* it's going to be that she can't do this or that, and what we'll do instead of this or that.  The self-consciousness feels particularly acute, since I have a sense of what the path ahead is likely to bring us.  So I both love and, in a sense, grieve - at the same time.  My mother knows she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and sometimes she'll joke and say her Alzheimer's is acting up, if she can't remember something.  It's quite touching.

Thank you for your reminiscence.  It reminds me to take advantage of as many opportunties as I possibly can, right now, to do things with my mother.  What a lovely reminiscence you've created to help us all figure out how we'll cope with the inevitable.  It's an ongoing process, isn't it?