A Shared Memory.

"I see a towel in a mirror and myself running through a house of windows"  My mother says.

I can't decipher these words, they are random and said in a soft whisper.  I encourage mom to speak louder and asked her to repeat what she said.  She can't.  I ask mom if she had a dream, or was she experiencing pieces of memories.

A lot of times, mom can't complete a memory, just as she can't complete a sentence.  Mom often has trouble searching for words and order.  Few times can she coherently express herself, other times it's almost mumble.

When a dementia patient is sleeping more than usual, it's because their brain function is working hard and their brains are trying hard to comprehend things, trying to make sense of things, trying to complete sentences and place thoughts/memories together. Their brains get exhausted, constantly "trying" yet never completing even a mere sentence. Mom is tired - she needs sleep.

Mom has something on her mind that she wants to share with me, and I'm standing there as if I'm playing a game of context clues. In her choppy sentences, and mis-tensed words, I find myself understanding mom.  Today mom shared a memory with me, it wasn't a happy memory, but a memory none-the-less, and although it's common for Dementia patients to remember people, places, and or events pre-diagnosis, it's not often that mom shares them with me, so I have to dig a little.  I want to know if mom was ever hurt by someone and so I question her and pry.  Mom is open with me, and doesn't want to sit - so we stand in her bedroom, face face conversing an old memory, when told started in the cotton fields...

I need to know mom's past to know if what she is experiencing now foreshadows past experiences. I want to help mom if in case she has ever gone through emotional trauma, but picking her brain is like picking a scab.