My Mom went to a movie the other day. The movie was about a boy, or maybe a man, who was mentally challenged. She doesn’t remember the name of the movie and can’t tell me much about the plot or the other characters. She remembers it took them eight years to film. My Mom has cheerfully and vaguely described this same movie to me every time we’ve talked on the phone this week. I still don’t know the name of the movie.

Conversations with my Mom over the phone are getting more and more difficult. Out of habit, I absentmindedly ask her what she did that day and then I feel terrible. She thinks hard, trying to remember. Sometimes an event comes to her, often she can’t tell me what she did just a few hours before, what she had for lunch. Thursdays are usually safe as she plays bridge that day every week. But last Thursday when I called and asked her about bridge she replied, “Did I play bridge today? No, I don’t think so. Not today.” In the background I heard my Dad’s voice, and then, laughing, my Mom said, “Oh, okay. Your Dad says I did play bridge today. I guess I did!”

The safe zone of topics to talk about with my Mom grows smaller and smaller. I bring up casual things about my work, a class I taught, a new student. I leave out the struggle to get grants to fund my research, my concern that soon I will run out of money to pay my research technician. I try to avoid anything that might make her worry. I know now that little bits of information can get stuck and twisted about in her mind, and later only small pieces of the whole puzzle will remain available to her. I once told her that after the kids were grown and out of school, Ryan and I would like to move to Colorado and spend our days hiking in the mountain air, fishing and paddle boarding in the rivers. A day after that conversation my Mom called me at work, her voice shaking, hoarse from crying.

“What’s wrong Mom, what happened?” I asked her, alarmed.

“Oh, I’m sorry to bother you at work, sweetie. I know you are so busy,” she replied.

“Mom, what is it? Tell me.” I repeated.

“I just have been so upset. I couldn’t sleep all night thinking about you all moving. I just don’t know what I will do if I can’t see you and my grandkids every day,” she replied tearfully. She had remembered only that we talked about moving away. Not now, I reassured her, a long time from now, a decade away, when the kids are in college. Her tears eventually subsided and I’m sure she no longer remembers anything about that conversation. But I remember, and now I am careful with my words.

As my own phone conversations with my Mom become more difficult, her conversations with my 8-year-old daughter get better and better. If Izzy knows I am talking to my Mom she will drop whatever she is doing and run to the phone. She grabs the phone out of my hand and I hear, “Hi Gram! What are you doing?” as she walks into the next room. She will sit quietly, content to chatter on with my Mom about anything and everything. Sometimes I hear only Izzy’s side of the conversation, other times they are on speaker and I hear them both. Izzy tells a long, drawn out and meandering story! When she tells me a story, I very often lose my patience and try to hurry her along so she gets to the point. But my Mom listens patiently, asks questions that keep the story going and going. For my Mom there is no timeline, no need to rush, no point to the story that has to be reached. Her ability to be in the moment is one of the few gifts of her dementia.

I’m in the kitchen chopping vegetables for dinner and listening to the two of them on speaker, my heart warmed by the happy pitch to my Mom’s voice, the smile I see on Izzy’s face. When I’m tired and drained from a long day, it is a relief to have Izzy there for my Mom. As they talk, the tension leaves my shoulders, the guilt I often feel over not finding the right words fades away.

“I saw a really good movie the other day about a boy who has trouble learning,” my Mom says. I look up, waiting to hear how Izzy will respond. My Mom already mentioned the movie just five minutes ago.

“That sounds like a good movie, Gram. I saw a movie, too! It was called the Lion King and when the Dad lion died it made me sad.”

I smile, draw my knife down through the soft flesh of a zucchini, begin to core a red pepper. They move on to talking about Izzy’s latest slime concoction, the fact that my Mom’s dog Ruby really needs a bath. Both of them wonder what might be for dinner that night.

As I listen, I vow that next time I’m on the phone with my Mom I won’t ask her the name of the movie she saw. I won’t hunt around for safe topics to keep from upsetting her. I will try to just talk to her, chat with her like Izzy does, connecting in the moment. Turns out the actual words exchanged don’t matter at all.