There was a big, white dog that lived in my Mom’s bedroom for several months. I never had to feed it, never had to walk it, never heard it bark. In fact, I couldn’t even see the dog. But Mom could. Many mornings I walked into her room to get her up, and she would tell me about the big, white dog. I told her there wasn’t a dog in her room, but she would say, “Yes, there is. I see it.” After a while I stopped arguing with her.

The last eleven months of mom’s life were trying times for our family. We decided to care for her at home, knowing it would be difficult, but not realizing just how difficult it would be.

Mom had her first serious stroke in May 2014. I think she’d had some small ones prior to that because it seemed that she would lose certain abilities, often overnight. But the stroke in May was devastating. She lost most of her fine motor skills, including the ability to feed herself. She didn’t talk much anymore, and she never laughed. I think that loss was the most difficult to deal with.

While Mom didn’t always respond to us when we spoke to her, but we knew she was listening. Potty time could be interesting. I and the family member who was helping me that day chatted as we waited for her to finish. Every now and then she would chime in to the conversation. One time we were talking about picking peas the next day, and, she said,, “I’ll help you.” We knew that if she were physically able, she would help us. And probably work circles around us in the process.

My favorite memories are these little glimpses I got of the mom I knew before the stroke. When the children from church came at Christmas to sing carols, Mom sang with them! On another evening we had just put her to bed, and I was talking to my sister-in-law about making chili for supper. Mary Ann commented that my brother Ron didn’t like it. I was surprised – I know mom made it often as I was growing up. So I asked mom, “Didn’t Ron eat chili when you made it?” She said, “Sure, he did.” And it was her clear, lucid voice talking.

On another night after she was in bed I was looking for a bandage. I couldn’t find any in the bathroom,and knew there were some in her room, so I slipped in. When I saw she was awake I told her I needed to get a bandage for my thumb. She said, “What’s wrong with it?” Again, as clear as a bell. I told her I had a paper cut. She said, “Oh, that gets sore.”

I remember thinking, “There she is!” Unfortunately as the eleven months of her illness went on those moments became few and far between.

And the white dog? One morning it was dead. She told me when I walked in her room. “There’s a dead dog in my bed.” After a few attempts to convince her otherwise, I told her I would call my brother to bury it. That seemed to satisfy her.

My sister-in-law gave my brother a heads-up about mom’s latest hallucination, so when he came in and she told him about the dead dog in her bed, he was ready.

His reply: “I took care of it.” We never heard another word about that dog.

A few months later, Mom passed into the presence of her Lord Jesus Christ. That knowledge gave us comfort, as did the knowledge that she was no longer in pain. But when we remember her, we also remember her big, white dog.