It started out with the small things like forgetting what and when she ate or what she was looking for when she walked into a room. Then, it was not turning off the burners on the stove or leaving the keys in the car. I blamed it on her medication problem (addiction), refusing to believe that it could be anything more. It wasn't until mid-November of 2012 that her scattered memory loss got worse. We were driving down S. Virginia street in Reno, NV, on our way back to our apartment, when my mother suddenly became frantic. She looked at me with fear and confusion in her eyes. “I can't remember!” she cried hysterically, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles gave off the appearance of candy canes. “I don't know what to-- how to drive!” After repeatedly telling her to hit the brakes, my voice raising each time, she finally slammed on the pedal, moments away from crashing into a small Honda stopped at the intersection. I gave my mother specific instructions on how to drive, and she slowly began to remember what to do. She later pulled into the Loft Apartments' parking lot and found a space for the car. We sat there in silence for a long time, neither of us daring to break it.

In that moment I remember looking at my mother and actually seeing her. I remember her hunched shoulders rising and falling steadily. I remember her curly, dark brown, pewter roots spewing out from her scalp, clashing into her faded artificially dyed vermilion hair. I remember the chalky look of her thickly coated makeup, and still, her claret bags beneath her eyes were clearly visible to a stranger's eyes. I remember her chapped lips and her chewed nails, brittle and raw. I remember her smokey-motherly smell. I remember my thoughts of pure concern, wondering why she was slowly disappearing from the woman I knew throughout my childhood. She was changing right before my eyes, more than I could have ever imagined.  

The buzzing vibration of my mothers phone sawed through the thick, and deafening, silence that settled between her and me. It startled us, quickly bringing us back to the present time. The phone rang over and over, but my mother became oblivious and ignored it, until its vibration gradually died off. Moments later, my mother had one hand on the door and the other one was reaching to remove the keys from the ignition. I gently touched my mother's arm and she jumped like a scared cat. “Mom, are you okay?”I immediately questioned her with a wild streak of concern. She looked at me as if I were a wino threatening her life.

She spoke, in a steady whisper, asking a three-worded question that would forever change my life. “Who are you?” My heart raced and my head spun. I fought off a shudder and my eyes misted over. “Mom, it's me, Samantha. Your daughter.” But it was no use, she was gone. I was gone. Thirteen years were stolen from her consciousness.