“Our Imperfect Lives” by Marzia Rahman

The doctor said there is no cure for dementia. What he didn’t say, we understood anyway: if there is no cure, there is no hope. It was a hot summer and there was nothing much to do. We played Monopoly, listened to Taylor Swift’s Champagne Problem, and watched mother losing her memory bit by bit. She mixed past and present quite effortlessly and faced reality as if it were a dream. Often, she sat silently, just one hand away, but we didn’t know how to reach her. She seemed far, far away; nine hundred nine hills away. Often, we visited her. My sister insisted we should visit her more. I wanted to, but I feared. I feared that her blank, vacant gaze would haunt us back into our blissfully imperfect lives.