My mother learned my new address by heart before dementia took the old one

Dear Delyara, My mother has dementia, and for months she kept giving taxi drivers my childhood address when she became confused. That house was sold twenty years ago. We worried that if she wandered, she would tell someone to take her somewhere none of us lived. So I wrote my current address on a card and practiced it with her every morning. At first, she became irritated. “I know where you live.” Then she began treating it like a school lesson. Number, street, postcode. Again. Again. Today, during an assessment, the nurse asked Mum where I live. She gave my address perfectly. Then the nurse asked where Mum herself lives. She could not answer. I had not expected the victory to hurt. My mother has memorized the route to me while losing the route to herself. In the car afterward, she repeated my postcode twice, proud. I told her she got it exactly right. She smiled and said, “Good. Then I can always find you.” I looked out the window because I could not bear to tell her memory does not keep promises just because we practice them hard enough.