Lost Words, Faded Recollections
Saying goodbye, time and again, with Jennifer and Jon Mosle
Jennifer and Jon Mosle watched dementia rob both their mothers of the lives they used to know.
Mrs. Mosle’s mother, Marilyn Torbett, has lived in an assisted living community for the past five years. A force of nature, she was a dedicated teacher before choosing to stay at home to raise her family. She later founded and led a highly successful residential real estate
company.
Jennifer Mosle, center, with her mother, Marilyn Torbett, left, and mother-in-law, Paula Mosle Provided by Jennifer Mosle
“She was the person who always figured out a way around or over any obstacle,” Mrs. Mosle said. “I am grateful Mom is still here physically and that I can hug and kiss her. I don’t know how she feels or what she knows, but I know Mom still laughs and smiles a lot, and, Jon says, she lights up when I walk into the room.”
Mrs. Mosle first noticed something amiss when her mother began struggling to find words. Over the next year or two, her condition deteriorated until she could no longer communicate and became unable to feed or dress herself.
“Grief is the most difficult thing for me now,” Mrs. Mosle said. “Every time I’m with her, it is bittersweet. It is like I’m saying goodbye, over and over again.”
Mr. Mosle’s mother, Paula, was the first Dean of Women at Rice University. She launched the university’s first residential college for women in the 1950s while getting her master’s degree in English.
As she approached her 80s, her family noticed short-term memory problems that slowly worsened. She could still hold a conversation and recite long passages from the plays of William Shakespeare, but her family knew she was not herself.
“The hardest thing for me was to consider the many missed opportunities during the last years of her life,” Mr. Mosle said. “Her life became very small compared to what it could have been.”
As medical advances around the world make it possible for people to live longer, Mr. Mosle worries about the quality of life that remains for those with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
“Just keeping people alive is not enough,” he said. “We need to address these severe memory disorders, because otherwise they undercut the value of all our other breakthroughs.”