I was watching an episode of "The West Wing" which was entitled "The Long Goodbye". In this episode, the White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg goes back to visit her dad who is suffering from the early stages of alzheimers disease. The reason why episode was titled as it was is because the nickname for the disease is the long goodbye.

Dadima had Alzheimer's Disease which was diagnosed around 3-4 years back. While she showed some signs of the disease such as forgetting something she did a couple of minutes back, it never really affected her spirits and her daily life. She was still quite independant (though due to her age, she wasn't able to go out alone anymore and her movements were significantly slowed down). After Ramazan and Eid last year, she suddenly fell into depression and her appetite was severely reduced. In retrospect, that was the exact moment where her health took a turn for the worse. She lost a lot of weight and much of her independance. She was hardly able to walk and had to rest most of the time.

Despite all of this, she never lost her love and concern for all of us. Arefa got married in August and I know Dadima wanted to go for her wedding in our ancestral town, Dahod but due to her health she wasn't able to go there. So Daddy suggested that we hold one of the celebratory events in Singapore where the bride's uncle on her mother's side performs a ceremony giving the bride new clothes and presents so that Dadima could be part of the wedding. I know that Dadima was in a lot of pain but she managed to muster all the strength she could so that she could make her grandchildren happy. All throughout the ceremony she didn't say anything and even joined in the celebrations in her favourite new clothes, the red set. It was only after everything was over when she asked the maid to bring her back to her room.

There was no long goodbye here. Dadima was our protective mother all the way. Only when she was admitted to hospital when reality struck us that perhaps she might not make it.

There are still times now when I look back and remember that times where I sometimes got frustrated while looking after Dadima and many times the frustrations clearly showed. I couldn't understand what she was going through. I'm sure it must have hurt her to see me like that but she didn't say anything. I sometimes wonder whether I did all I could.

Eid ul fitr was not much of a celebratory time this year. Dadima was missing. And the void was felt really badly.

I hope that she's finally found peace in the glorious presence of Imam uz zaman now and that she knows we still love her and miss her dearly.