The author and her mum in August 2019 (pre-Alzheimer’s diagnosis).

“Are we in New York City yet?” my mum asked as we drove from Orlando International Airport to a hotel in Ocala, Florida.

I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or if she was serious.

It was close to 9pm. We had landed an hour earlier, picked up the rental car, and were now navigating the dark highways.

I was moving my mum into assisted living.

In September of 2021, she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She had just turned 68 in August, and I was turning 37 that month. Thanks to Covid, I hadn’t seen her for a year-and-a-half, and I couldn’t believe how withdrawn and thin she had become. By January 2023, she’d lost her ability to complete everyday tasks like making a simple meal, driving, and remembering to shower.

She was set on staying in her home but resisted the in-home care we set up – I suspect because of what it represented: a loss of independence, a loss of self, and the acceptance of a disease that would slowly rob her of her memories and the ability to take care of herself.

We had to make the hard choice of finding her a new home for her safety and wellbeing. But we knew she wouldn’t be interested in moving to assisted living.

So, we agreed to pitch it as an opportunity to spend the winter near my brother in sunny Florida, while living at a “cozy winter condo” we told her we had arranged for her.

A few days earlier, I had arrived at her house in Pennsylvania after a long flight from Amsterdam, where I now live, jet-lagged and anxious, to help pack. A full-time caregiver had been staying with her since she fell and banged her head a month prior.

“I’m moving to Florida to be closer to my son,” my mum told her, as they sat on a beige loveseat sofa in my mum’s den.

I bought three large boxes, filled them with random odds and ends, and stacked them in the living room. The house wasn’t mine, and I hadn’t grown up there, but it still felt like home. The bookshelves were packed with a lifetime of my mum’s books. She asked me over and over how we would move them.

“We’ll deal with it later,” I reassured her.

She woke me at 3am some nights, fully dressed. “Do we need to go to the airport now?”

Each time, I told her no, it wasn’t time yet. The idea of missing the flight kept her up at night, but the idea of what was actually happening she never really grasped.

We took........

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