Fathers and Mothers and Dementia

"I feel as if I'm losing all my leaves. ...

The branches and the wind and the rain. I don't know what's happening anymore."

 Anthony in The Father

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12

Anthony Hopkins won the 2020  Best Actor Osar for his role in the film The Father. He was the oldest person to do so for a lead role at 83 demonstrating that this consummate actor still has his chops, Just the same, I heard him admit that playing a man named Anthony who is dealing with Alzheimer's was cause for pause, realizing the increasing frailties of the body and mind as we age.  

WE finally got around to watching The Father, and it is a thought-provoking story, told so that we aren't quite sure of what is reality and what is the product of Anthony's dementia. All through it we watch Anthony's daughter, played by Olivia Colman, do her best to support her strong-willed parent who is convinced that he's capable of caring for himself.

There is a scene near the end in which bewildered Anthony speaks with a caregiver with a previously unseen vulnerability. He laments that he feels "as if I'm losing all my leaves." 

In my countless visits with those living with dementia, including my late mother, many have expressed a similar sense of loss, often as poignantly, if not as poetically. 

We can do our best to love and to be kind in our relationships with those who minds are betraying them yet are still precious to the God who brought them into being. We never know how close at hand dementia may be for any of us.