The secrets that my mother keeps

I tried to insist that my mother take me with her to see the neurologist.  She's quite slippery, this mother of mine, deflected my soft hints and then with startling honesty shut down my more intrusive blunt request.  Her reasons were that she wanted to control the information that I receive about her health.  She wanted to go in to the doctor, answer all of his questions honestly, without an audience, and then whatever the outcomes are - she wants to be the one to tell us what she wants us to know.
Well...okay then.  

Graduation 1957

My mother is at the age where she is independent, pretty functional, lucid and yet beginning to show signs that all is not as it has been up in the recesses of her brain.  She is terrified of losing that independence - a trait that she has had to utilize since she was old enough to walk.  Independence was a survival skill and then it became a strength.  Somehow it has also evolved into this way that she doesn't want to now burden her children with the frailties of her aging.

I really do understand and I am sad to see her so scared.  Right now, I don't know what to do other than love her and honor her choices.  Right now, it's alright for her to have the space she needs to come to terms with what is happening.  I want her to have as much freedom as she can squeeze out of life - whatever makes her feel better; numbs the grief.  I just don't want her to keep secrets.  Not about her health.

The doctor says it could be the results of a stroke or she could be dealing with the slow onset of Alzheimer's. It could be something completely different than either one of those choices.  Regardless, he has scheduled some more comprehensive testing over the next month and hopefully she will share those results with us.