I pace and try to breathe slower while she is away. Such a tiny room, I pace around the machines.

Does anyone remember that feeling of shock as you made the connections watching the last 5 minutes of the movie The Sixth Sense? Piecing it together in disbelief, hand in hand with Bruce Willis’s character, seeing flashbacks in a whole new light. The shock of knowing that his character was indeed dead the entire time, the sadness of realizing with him that his life had been over and there was no way to change it.

Unlike twenty-four and a half years ago, he and I are the only ones present for this bookend to our wedding day. No family and friends, no church, no flowers. No tuxedo, no big beautiful white dress.

We’ve turned the corner from summer into fall, Halloween replaced by Christmas decorations. The nights and mornings on the East Coast have taken on that chill, inviting warm soft blankets and fireplaces if you are lucky to have them.

A neighbor passes, walking their dog. I nod and smile at them as I continue yelling into the phone in utter frustration. These social niceties must go on even when your world feels like it is crashing down.

It can be rather hard to look angry and firm, and to be taken seriously as a grown woman dressed in a bear costume. The large over-sized stomach and the puffy ball tail hanging down low behind my butt certainly wasn’t helping.

The surge of emotions, mental exhaustion, and anxiety swirled within me to a point where it felt like it was spilling into the space around me like an enveloping aura.

5 days. My Genius Bar person, used to addicts, quickly reassured me I could return another time if “not ready to part with it today.”

“We think your Mom has two types of dementia, Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia.”

Pamela Adlon has done a tremendous job of conveying the joy, the sadness, the humor; the immense weight of responsibility, the exhaustion, the endless multitasking and worries, the feeling of getting an impossible number of things done in a given day while still always feeling like you’ve come up short. And at the same time she eloquently shows us the incredibly light and deep moments of joy and beauty, laughter, love and connection.

Kids dressed in their carefully selected first day of school outfits carrying their brand new backpacks filled to the brim with sharpened pencils, treasured school supplies, and boxes of tissues to supply classrooms through flu season.

As I swim around my circle like a goldfish, the only sign of my kids in the water are the two pairs of goggles and the water guns floating around the pool that I had optimistically bought back in May. My 13- and 22-year-old kids have sadly lost interest, so it’s become my private oasis.

“Watch the tram car please…watch the tram car please…”

Massaging tinted moisturizer into my thinner more translucent aging skin, trying to lighten the heavy dark circles under my eyes. Applying eyeliner and shadow to brighten them, my eyes have not looked the same since July 15 of the previous year. Still I try to tap into my beauty, my light.

Squinting my eyes as the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights spread into star-like shapes, I glanced at the cricket bat leaning against the corner of the living room wall.

The loud crackling sounds from policemen’s walkie talkies crashed through me. Hearing my mom beg her dad to not make her go.

Before opening her eyes, she awakens to a racing heart as a surging wave of dread rushes through her. The red digital numbers on her nightstand shout 5:38. How will she get through this day?