WEBVTT

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Parents put all their hopes and dreams

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and fears into you.

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They love you and

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you’re precious to them.

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Your flesh is theirs.

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They want to spare you

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some hardships,

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but the hardships are the
things that shape you.

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Those are the rights of passage.

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Every summer,

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when I was a little girl
growing up in Texas,

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there were millions of fireflies.

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I would go out and

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collect this whole jar of fireflies.

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I would make this little lantern

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to find my way back home.

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And I would show it to Madje,

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and she would say, “Oh, it’s beautiful,

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but now we have to let them go.”

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We want them to keep lighting everything.

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And we would just watch

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until every one of them

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had flown away.

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Every child starts to understand that

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your parent will die one day.

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So I

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asked her to please wait for me.

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And she promised to wait for me.

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I was her family,

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she was my family.

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My mother was

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very independent.

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That came from

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the fact that she was a divorced woman.

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She was very

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aware of

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how people viewed her

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and thus me.

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She was very much a disciplinarian as well.

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I mean

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very much so.

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We had a very affectionate relationship.

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Of course that changed

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as I became a teenager.

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A hateful, resentful teenager.

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In fact, it did get very bad.

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She sat me down one day and she said,

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“I can\'t do this anymore.

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You either have to stop

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being so mean or

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I am going to sell everything we have

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and put you in boarding school.

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And when you are eighteen
you are on your own.”

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This was not an idle threat.

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Not only would I lose everything,

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but I would lose my mother.

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It scared the doodle out of me.

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And I, I changed overnight.

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She would say,

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you know just because
you born into a family

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doesn\'t mean you have to like them.

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And for a couple of months,

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we didn\'t even talk.

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As she saw me become

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more independent,

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she knew that

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the day was coming when I would leave.

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And I did leave,

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I had to leave.

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I am really not a small town gal.

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So I went to New York

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to seek my fortune and,

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there I found it.

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I never expected to have this

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rather magical,

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incredible life.

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So much richer than I

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ever would have thought

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because of photography.

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All over the world,

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you make friends.

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And they become your
brothers and your sisters.

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You have an opportunity

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to choose your family.

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If I could change anything,

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I probably wouldn\'t have left

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Madje alone so much

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after she retired.

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She became extremely lonely

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and in the loneliness
she went a little mad.

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My mother

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would have been very
happy for me to come and

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just live with her

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and take care of her

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and shut the door to the world.

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And I,

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I couldn’t do that.

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I think that

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really contributed

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to her demise.

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I didn\'t recognize that

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or I didn\'t want to recognize it.

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Was I irresponsible?

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Was I a bad daughter?

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These are all questions I still ask myself.

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Maybe my mother wouldn’t have had dementia?

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She might not have

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fallen into it as quickly.

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Oh, good girl,

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good girl.

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Ok, oh, goodness me.

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OK.

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There, now you’re awake.

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Hello, beautiful.

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My little beautiful woman.

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OK, here we go.

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Gently, gently, gently, gently, gently.

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Around the age of 76,

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she started to suffer

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memory loss and started
to get very confused.

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And then one day

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I got a call from the Austin Police.

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They said your mother called us.

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She was very disoriented.

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All the doors were open.

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There is cat shit everywhere.

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So we have taken her to

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the psych ward at the local hospital

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and you need to come right away.

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And to be honest,

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until Madje sort of lost it,

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I couldn\'t move her.

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It was too hard.

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She wasn\'t ready.

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I wasn\'t ready.

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So this

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psychotic episode

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allowed us to make that move.

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When she realized where she was

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and what I had done, she slapped me

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so hard, it almost knocked me down.

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She was furious

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and said, \"Ah, you are dumping me!”

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Memory is everything.

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Memory is the description of your life.

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Dementia happens in stages.

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Long term memories,

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you can still recall but,

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immediate memories like,

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one minute ago, or

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yesterday, are just gone.

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You can sit with somebody and literally

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answer the same question

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fifty times.

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You, you want to scream.

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It’s very hard

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not to lose your patience.

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But the person literally

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cannot remember that they even

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asked the question.

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And so I spent the next

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three or four days with my mother non-stop.

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Within ten days,

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she just blossomed,

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she was completely different.

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She became kinder

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and more gentle.

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These lines fell from her face

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and she was happy.

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And she had this long hair

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and the women at the place would fix it up.

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She got dressed up everyday

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and people were nice to her.

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And even she started
looking really cool and

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kind of like a movie star almost.

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This was like a reawakening for her.

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At some point in this
voyage that we were on,

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all these windows and doors

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suddenly were flung open

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and all these barriers came down.

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All of these things that I think

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drove us apart

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fell away.

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It’s like all is forgiven.

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All because of this crazy disease.

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So, in a way,

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dementia gave me the
mother I always wanted.

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It was very lovely for a year,

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but then,

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things started happening.

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She was starting to hallucinate.

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Like, one night she woke up in
the middle of the night and

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started waking everyone up

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and saying there’s a fire, there\'s a fire.

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Finally,

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things got a little bit too bad.

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So I had to move her to a locked facility.

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And that was one of the worst

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moments of my life, to think,

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that I was going to lock my mother up.

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Because I know that I wouldn’t want it.

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I would rather be dead.

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And the idea

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that I would have to lock
her up, just, I don’t know,

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I know it’s kind of silly, like,

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OK it’s safer for her, you know.

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But it just kills you, it
kills you, it just kills you.

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I love you.

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You know that I love you?

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Then I found this place
called Midtown Manor.

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And I could relax

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because I knew she was in good care.

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You know you are pretty lady?

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The caregivers were amazing.

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Who is the princess?

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Tell me.

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You are the princess?

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You are my little princess,

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huh?

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Who is the princess, mommy?

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Give me a kiss.

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Give me kiss.

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One,

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two,

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three.

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Heart of my heart,

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I love that melody.

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Heart of my heart,

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brings back those memories.

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When we were kids

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on the corner

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of the street.

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Oh, how we could

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harmonize.

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Heart of my hearts

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meant friends were dearer then.

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Too bad we had to part.

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I know...

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The number one caregiver, Minadora–,

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she became very protective of Madje.

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You are hungry?

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You are hungry?

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Tell yes.

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Yes.

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Tell yes.

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There were times,

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I have to admit,

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where I thought about,

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these woman are with

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my mother more than I am.

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She even probably feels

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closer to them

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than she does to me now.

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Maybe she doesn\'t even know who I am.

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Minadora,

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I’m sure, prolonged Madje’s life.

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She just fell in love with her,

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and I think also

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maybe in a way,

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Madje was her mother, you know.

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She was lucky.

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In the end, she got a
very nice little family.

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And I did too.

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It’s too big

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don’t count

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because it’s turned around her arm twice.

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But see how hard she’s breathing?

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She normally doesn’t breathe that hard.

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On her 89th birthday

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I noticed that her heart was really racing,

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like 180 beats a minute.

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Everybody ask me in the
dining room about you, mommy.

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Yes, huh?

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Yes.

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She want to say something.

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She listen to us.

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I love you so much.

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You are

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very deep in my heart.

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You know that?

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You know that, I know.

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During that week,

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some of the residents
would come up and visit.

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People would bring her flowers.

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It was very sweet.

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There’s a kiss from Beverly.

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I didn’t realize how

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connected people were to her.

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Thank you, Beverly.

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I had to make a decision

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whether to send Madje to the hospital

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or whether to keep her there.

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It’s like having to say well

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you live or you die.

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If I send her to the hospital,

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maybe she will live,

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but then she would have

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all these tubes in her and

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I know she doesn’t want that.

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I have to tell you, this is a,

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a remarkable decision you have to make.

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And,

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because you know the time is here,

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you know, it’s time to die.

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And,

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I don\'t... It changes you.

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You know?

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There’s your life before that

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and,

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and your life after that.

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And,

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I don\'t think you are ever quite the same.

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The thing I worried about

00:13:07.751 --> 00:13:09.958
from the time I was five

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until then,

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was coming true.

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I just kept talking to
her and comforting her

00:13:18.209 --> 00:13:20.375
and telling her how much I loved her.

00:13:20.376 --> 00:13:28.376
I was watching her disappear

00:13:30.792 --> 00:13:32.499
before my eyes.

00:13:32.500 --> 00:13:35.875
You have to tell them they can go.

00:13:35.876 --> 00:13:37.916
That’s the last thing you want to say.

00:13:37.917 --> 00:13:38.999
You want to say, stay.

00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:40.209
Don\'t go yet.

00:13:41.167 --> 00:13:45.208
I just rocked her until

00:13:45.209 --> 00:13:49.419
she took her last breath.

00:13:49.420 --> 00:13:51.958
That is the worst thing

00:13:51.959 --> 00:13:53.208
that I’ll ever live through.

00:13:53.209 --> 00:13:55.916
But I also have to say that it is

00:13:55.917 --> 00:13:59.333
the most incredible thing I
will ever do with my life

00:13:59.334 --> 00:14:01.958
because I was there.

00:14:01.959 --> 00:14:04.830
And I so wanted to be there.

00:14:06.830 --> 00:14:09.250
It was a very beautiful death.

00:14:24.792 --> 00:14:26.333
Being there when

00:14:26.334 --> 00:14:28.666
the person who gave you life,

00:14:28.667 --> 00:14:30.958
is going,

00:14:30.959 --> 00:14:32.830
is,

00:14:33.542 --> 00:14:35.124
I don\'t know what you could,

00:14:35.125 --> 00:14:37.751
I don\'t know how you could
ask for anything greater.

00:14:38.917 --> 00:14:42.958
Dementia was very liberating for her.

00:14:42.959 --> 00:14:45.208
I don\'t know that she

00:14:45.209 --> 00:14:47.374
could ever see who I really was,

00:14:47.375 --> 00:14:50.791
but I suddenly saw who she was.

00:14:50.792 --> 00:14:53.458
Not as Madje my mother,

00:14:53.459 --> 00:14:55.958
but as Madje.

00:14:55.959 --> 00:14:58.708
It was an honor,

00:14:58.709 --> 00:15:01.249
to be her daughter.

00:15:01.250 --> 00:15:03.833
She has to go on

00:15:03.834 --> 00:15:06.375
and I have to stay.

00:15:07.125 --> 00:15:10.834
The fireflies are flying away.

00:15:14.250 --> 00:15:17.625
But, I\'ll have this wonderful lantern

00:15:17.626 --> 00:15:19.833
to find my way to her

00:15:19.834 --> 00:15:21.542
one day.