The In-Between Time
April 5 2026
It’s the in-between time I fear.
When I can feel it slipping away
concentrate harder
and try to persuade myself
it’s just a momentary lapse.
Stubborn denial,
even though deep inside
I know how it will end;
an uneven descent
into dementia
I’m powerless to stop.
When I can’t find the words
lose my place
or wander aimlessly
but brazen through it,
just waiting
for my compass to kick in
and I can laugh it off.
Until I can’t
and the fear takes over.
I can only hope
that when I finally lose myself
and am irretrievably gone
the fear and grieving will go as well.
That I will be happy
in my reduced state of humanity
not knowing what I’ve lost.
That lack of self-awareness
will be my saving grace.
Who cares
if I can’t feed or dress myself
or recognize faces,
not even my own.
Of course there’s no way to know
what interior life persists
in those spectral men
in soiled underwear
slumped in chairs that face the wall,
the bewildered women
lying stiffly in bed,
clutching blankets
with cadaverous hands
wrapped in paper-thin flesh.
No way to know, but one can surely suspect.
Especially when a spark of who they were
flashes briefly out
from that impassive face,
a familiar smile
twinkle of eye
or cock of the head.
A spark
that never catches fire.
Is it one way glass
where only we can’t see in,
or opaque
with nothing going either way
but vague reflections
of a distant past?
My understanding is that dementia often unmasks one’s true character. (Similar to the way alcohol unmasks, resulting in congenial drunks as well as belligerent ones.) That this core self somehow remains after most everything else is lost. It could be happy, dour, impatient, angry, paranoid; outgoing or closed; taciturn or loud. And we also know that long term memory often remains intact. So there is something going on in there, some sort of interior life. One can only hope that one’s essential temperament is happy acceptance!
But before that, when there’s still insight into one’s decline, I don’t imagine anyone could be happy. So what I fear is not the end stage of dementia — even though that’s probably much more disturbing to those around the sufferer — it’s the beginning.
This piece by Atlantic staff writer Ashley Parker inspired the poem. It’s beautifully written and bravely confessional.
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