How to deal with crushing heartbreak?

Your best job now is to give your mother as much pleasure as possible. Being a nice girl who can tell her lovely stories about the past seems absolutely perfect. Change your grief about what is lost into being grateful that you can continue to give her something valuable. Enjoy talking about the old things with your mother, and value every look that says she values it too.

From the moment "we" get a diagnosis of dementia we begin the mourning process. I guess the same goes for any diagnosis that will shorten a life.
Little bits of a person are eroded away and a shell is left. You can actually see it in photos of someone with dementia. There is a vacancy there. (I had a thought when looking at photos of my Husband. You hear the phrase "The eyes are the window to the soul". My thought was that with dementia God takes the soul early so the person does not know what is happening to them. That is why I saw no "life" in his pictures. I know silly but it made me feel better if I thought he was unaware how dependent he was and how much of himself he lost)..now I'm crying..
Anyway, I suppose that did not help you much with your sadness. Just know we all feel it.
Next time you visit mom might be totally different, she may know you. She may not.
Thank her for being who she is and was. Thank her for being a wonderful mom. Not everyone has that. Thank her for passing on the best of her to you.
She will always be with you. When you laugh I bet sometimes you sound like her, when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a store window you see your mom. She is not going to leave you..ever.
Continue to be the wonderful person you are, it is the best way to thank her.
((hugs)) for both of you

I would visit the memory care side of the nursing home as I was on the skilled nursing side every day - I wanted to see if the people I met would remember me. They wouldn't. I'm also going through memory loss myself so this is 2 parts. First after finding out no one would remember me, I would make it a here now situation, meaning - we would enjoy life, not the future or the past just now. Second, as my memory slowly slipping away, I've been slowly morning the loss. Because I can watch tv shows as if they are bran New. I can't really create any new memories. It seems to be a lot harder for family. I've made a picture book of my favorite memories I don't want to forget, so when I do it will be just a wonderful book someone can tell me about.
This is a new chapter in her life now, adjusting you must make. It's quite scary to have you memories disappear, it sucks......love and peace to you

This may seem unfeeling-and I don't mean for it to be.

You had/have a loving, wonderful relationship, that until very recently, was a great addition to your life. Things have changed, and you no longer have that. BUT...

you DID have it. One day, after all this is over, and mom has passed to the next stage of existence, peace will find you and you will find that the good memories will still be there and still shoring you up as you travel through life.

A lot of us on this site DID NOT and DO NOT have any 'warm fuzzy' feelings for our parents who are still with us, giving us grief and actual emotional pain. I ENVY you, I really do. My daddy was a sweetie, so, of course, the way life goes, we lost him waaay too early. Mom is, to put it nicely, difficult. My MIL actually hates me (states it to anyone she talks to, so it's not just me making things up)...how I wish I had that kind of relationship with ONE of these women.

I was blessed with tremendous grandmothers whose memories I cherish, so I'm not totally w/o that kind of love.

It is so hard to watch a LO slip away, quietly and daily just leaving us. My heart aches for you---but do spend some time thinking of gratitude for what you HAD. SO many of us do not have that.

You ARE mourning her loss. Mom’s body is still here, but her mind/self is not. It’s totally normal to feel this way.

My father. He had a massive brain bleed and sometimes has no idea who I am. There was no slow memory loss. He had a stroke, brain surgery, woke up 2 weeks later, and I no longer recognize the man in front of me. He looks like my dad, but that’s where the similarities end.

I know exactly what you’re going through. I too mourned (and continue to mourn) the loss of my dad as I knew him. Sometimes stroke patients come back, but the doctors warned that there could be permanent brain damage in the reason and functioning area of his brain - they just don’t know. So, now I’m on the “waiting and seeing” side of things for the next 3-15 months.

I miss my dad. I’ll read about something, or someone will tell me something and I’ll immediately think, “Oh! I’ll have to tell that to Dad,” only to remember that he wouldn’t know what they hell I’m talking about if I did. Most of the time he’s so sedated he’s out of it, or he’s hallucinating. Even when he remembers me, the aphasia is so bad I don’t know what he’s saying.

He’s just gone, and he would be so pissed that he’s this way.

In terms of how to deal…. When I’m not with him, I mourn. When I am with him, I feel disconnected because the man I knew is not there. I treat him more as a child, fussing over him. It gives me something to do, and he feels taken care of. But when I leave, yeah. Most days I’m crying as I walk to my car.

If you find this grief too much, reach out and find a grief counselor, because that’s what this is. It’s a loss of someone that you love.

Hugs. I know it feels like it, but you’re not alone.

It's really a sad and distressing thing to witness the dramatic decline our mother's take with dementia. My nearly 95 y/o mother is in the advanced stage herself and talks about Lea while I'm sitting next to her, which leads me to believe she doesn't realize I'm her daughter. She also introduces me to the staff as her mother, which she's been doing for quite a long time now. My DH and I visited her yesterday at the Memory Care AL where she lives and it was heartbreaking to see her not able to understand what we were saying to her, or to follow the conversation at all. The whole situation is a mess, really, and I pray that God takes her Home soon now. This is no way for her to be living at all and I shudder to think what it will look like when she gets even worse.

I don't think you or I overcome the sadness. It just becomes part of who we are as we continue this journey to the end with our mom's, you know? It's like the grief of death....you don't really get over the loss, the raw grief just let's up a bit with time. With each visit to see our mother's while they're still alive however, the horror and pain stay alive in the mind and it's like reopening a wound each time. Very difficult to say the least.

Sending you a big hug and a prayer for some peace in your heart.

(((Hugs))) to any and all of you going through this. Every story I read here truly breaks my heart each time. Just the biggest hugs for the difficulties- sadness and loss you have all endured.

I am so sorry. I know this sorrow and the repeated heart breaks that this disease brings to those of us caring for our family members. The repeated loss really is the long goodbye. They keep losing a piece of themselves and they are so intertwined in our lives and who we are...so it's a cut that is deep. I don't have any words of wisdom only to say that you are not alone. We are all here with you and we know the same pain you are experiencing.

Family members who are seldom around mom don't understand when I say that I feel I lost her a long time ago. She is not the same person and I am not the same person to her at this stage. I am taking care of her body until it decides to leave as well. I feel honored to do that for my mom. It makes me feel good that I have been entrusted to do that for her. It really healed me a bit to look at it that way.

Hugs. I know the first time is a shock.

It’s just so, so hard. I hear you and am walking the same road.

It’s heartbreaking. Each visit is another exercise in grief.

I pray on the way in, begging God to help me be of some kind of service to my mother and her caregivers.

I also ask God for the courage to even go in there, sometimes. Cause it just hurts.

I understand what you’re going through.

Praying for you tonight.