In the last years of her life,
her body grew smaller.
Her world narrowed.
Rooms.
A chair.
Familiar walls.
But until almost the very end,
she did not give up.
That is important to say.
Even when walking became difficult,
she still wanted to go out.
McDonald’s at Safina Plaza.
Commercial Street.
She wanted to see the world for herself,
a slow wander, even if it required planning.
Even when parking and walking became complicated,
she still wanted to try.
Even when her patience shortened,
when confusion crept in,
when dementia began fogging the present,
she still wanted to do things.
Learn things.
Be productive.
She still wanted little children around her,
needle and thread in hand,
teaching embroidery in the building.
She still cared how her house looked.
She liked things neat.
In place.
Orderly.
She appreciated beauty.
Good fabric.
Straight lines.
Clean surfaces.
She enjoyed good things
almost to the very end.
It was only in the last few years
that some of this slipped.
Not because the desire was gone -
but because the body and mind could no longer obey it.
And on the hardest dementia days,
her inner world turned frightening.
She believed people wanted her gone.
That she was in the way.
That she was unwanted.
Those were the days I understood
the fragility of the human mind.
Those were the days I had to remind myself -
this was not “my mother.”
This was a patient.
A brain misfiring.
A mind under siege.
But underneath that confusion,
the foundation never disappeared.
Because long before the small body,
long before the fear,
there was a young woman
with fire in her belly.
Herself a Home Economics student
she insisted the back of embroidery
must be as neat as the front.
Mine was.
She glowed when I told her
I cut bread thinner than anyone in class.
Onions finer than anyone else.
When I needed a white sari in college,
she bought it, stitched the fall, posted it.
No fuss.
Just done.
She wrote to me regularly in those days.
Letters.
Encouraging.
Full of pride.
And even in her last years,
when her present blurred,
the past remained intact.
Every morning at 7:20 a.m.,
as I got into my car to drive to school,
I would call her.
Video on.
She saw the roads.
The trees.
My department.
My colleagues saying hello.
Sometimes I drove early to Jax beach
so she could watch the sunrise.
“It looks like Kihim,” she would say.
Dementia fogged the present.
It did not erase the foundation.
She had made beauty from scraps
before it was fashionable.
Toothpaste caps.
Bottle lids.
Bits of cloth.
Crafts from Waste.
She was a pioneer.
She held exhibitions.
Taught children.
Earned the name Dadi from the entire building.
She was the universally respected grandmother.
But she was wounded too.
As a young bride,
she was not treated gently by her mother-in-law.
That stayed with her.
It shaped parts of her.
She was not simple.
She was proud.
Disciplined.
Wounded.
Loving.
Difficult.
Generous.
Fearful.
Strong.
She was all of it.
And through all of it,
I was watching.
I learned neatness.
I learned discipline.
I learned that the back must look as good as the front.
I learned that productivity is dignity.
I learned that beauty matters.
I learned that wounds travel if you do not examine them.
I learned how fragile the mind can be.
I learned how to separate illness from identity.
I learned how not to give up.
That was the fire in her belly.
People ask me if I miss her.
I do.
But I have my own little secret
way of seeing her.
I just have to look
a little harder
in the mirror.
There’s fire in this belly too!