How Much Should Be Related about a Relative We Love?

            Here’s a question that sometimes wakes me up at night (if I’m not already rising at 2:00 AM to begin my day):  How much should I censor myself when I put vignette’s of Mom’s dementia online—even on a blog that almost no one every reads? 

            Take what I put on Mom’s Mind blog yesterday—her expressing the idea that a friend of 40 years needn’t see her fully dressed.  She got that right!  After all, this friend who knew Mom as a wonderful and bright woman had seen her without her wonderful and bright mind, a much more serious indignity. 

            Still, I’m aware that this isn’t the portrait of Mom that she would want people to see.  She wanted to inspire love and admiration, not elicit sympathy and scrutiny of her struggle against losing what she cherished most.  But I admire her struggle, too.  I admire her defiant statements as well as her conciliatory ones. 

            Just the same I’m aware that I need to start balancing the vignettes of  that struggle with vignettes that Mom herself would feel good reading. 

            Here’s something to admire:  Mom admired people who were good, not people who were successful.  She admired her father because he was kind and caring even when the kindness and care caused him to fail at business.  She admired Missy for being non-judgmental (even though Missy was so harshly judged, ultimately even by herself).  She admired David for being loving and forgiving and not just because she needed his love and forgiveness.