The Poetry of Dementia shares my family’s journey with my mother’s illness as a collection of moments—a poem a day written the last year of her life. Loving and caring for my mother at home fundamentally changed us, and served as a daily reminder to live fully in the present with love, trust and patience. This is my story of embracing forgiveness, discovering love and learning to let go.
Art is activism. Living is an art.
The evening before I left Buffalo, New York to begin a new life—again—I learned that a beautiful, young woman I’d known had taken her life. The news came as a shock. From a distance, she appeared serene and successful. But I know well enough that below the surface we all live complicated lives of contradictions and conflict. I imagine my life appears serene and successful. Most days, it feels that way—but not always. Beginning Again is a new daily project I am writing and sharing in Cortney’s memory. I offer my own vulnerable and varied truth, because living is both an art and an ordeal. Every day a maddening mix of daunting and delightful.