Many of you followed Courage at Twilight as I recounted my experience living with dying parents.  With this page, I am launching a new exploration.  As my father’s mental abilities diminished, I naturally attributed the loss to senility, or more broadly and accurately, to dementia.  He read for hours and hours a day until the final week, and he still comprehended and remembered more than I do when I read the same books.  But his ability to comprehend, synthesize, apply, and remember the information began to suffer.  The decline was mostly masked by his great intellect, but gradually became more noticeable.  Where nine years ago he easily followed Word’s “accept” and “reject” functions while reviewing my suggested edits to his book Process of Atonement, in his last year he could not manage the power button, mute button, or any other button on the television remote.  Alone with Mom now, I am observing on a daily basis her decline in mental function, short-term and long-term memory, and the ability to process new information and work through new problems.  And I am pondering the spectrum of mental normalcy.  I am well-known at work for remembering the details of 30-year-old incidents, but I notice my own mid-term memory fading, like forgetting that the City Council increased its golf course fees six months ago (I wrote the fee resolution).  I am wondering: where does sanity end and senility begin?  But that is the wrong question, presupposing that senility is the loss of sanity.  It isn’t.  Senility is the loss of memory.  And don’t we all experience memory loss for once-remembered people, places, dates, and occasions?  So, by becoming more forgetful, am I, myself, drifting into dementia?  Where does dementia begin?  On what date is my memory and cognitive function loss sufficient to say, “That’s when my dementia began”?  I doubt such a date can be determined.  But episodes characterizing dementia can be humorous, sad, or maddening (etc.), or all combined.  In these posts I will record my mother’s little oddities, pointing together toward dementia and decline.  I mean no disrespect in finding an aspect of humor in her decline.  But humor often derives from the little human oddities of life, whether happy or sad.  I am merely observing, and trying to make sense, again, of the ending of life.  Each post here will be much shorter than this one—I promise—and will relate a small vignette illustrating the nature of inevitable human decline.  I love and respect my mother—and she also drives me batty!  Hopefully these entries will make you smile at, and ponder on, those we love whose earthly lives are winding down.  I look forward to continuing my journey through life with you.