The reality–that her death was imminent, unyielding to the tonics and colonics and healers and herbs, that turned her shit tarry and black, that made her vomit everything she consumed–took shape in my body, growing and multiplying, like a cancer slowly taking over every cell of my insides. It was physical, my pain. A churning in my belly. A small seed that grew and took form and had to be birthed or otherwise disposed of. But, it stayed. It stays still. Dormant, retreated, hibernating through winter. I feel this tiny beast in my throat, in my chest, behind my eyes, under my breath, in my balled up fists–veiled but not gone.

The thing about your mom dying when you’re 24, and getting sick when you’re 17, is that you miss out on that adult relationship that happens later in life. I’m not complaining, I got a lot more years than some people get with their parents.

But, I know so little about her life–who she was before joining a cult and having four kids. I know so little about my own childhood or her choices as a mother–how long did she breastfeed, how old was she when she first had sex? These conversations were just beginning when we started noticing troubling signs in her short-term memory and daily habits. It didn’t take long for all conversations about the past or the future to cease. Every day was just about getting through that moment, that hour. We reminisced a bit and read the newspaper to stay up on current events but she couldn’t hold on to much and she would become confused and embarrassed quickly.

My mother was an elegant lady. Elegant and refined and brilliant. Not traits you would typically expect from a cult-follower. You envision women who follow their male gurus without question–into illegal activity, into immoral actions, into a life of pain and confinement and hate–to be astonishingly simple and broken. Women who are looking to fill hollow, emptied out spaces in their bodies with the weight of pain and suffering–women who are consumed by trauma, looking to forget or run from something more awful than the reality they so willingly sign on to. Or else, women who are just too naive, too juvenile and too feeble to realize before it’s too late.

My mother was none of those things. She was a college-educated woman. She was studying Neuroscience before leaving to join a commune. She opened a women’s health clinic in Vancouver, followed the Beatles through Europe, lived for two years in India. She modeled in New York City and had dozens of close friends. She kept in touch with her family, traveled as much as she could and made an effort to look put together every single day. I can still hear the cla-clink, cla-clink of her heels on our wooden floors as she rushed to grab the phone. She read–early in the morning and late into the night–with a voracity and focus I have yet to see replicated. She was smart. Whip-smart. And yet…so confused and so lost and so misguided. Even before her disease took over.

“They’re after me,” she said one morning. I was home from college for the summer and spending most days with her.

“Who? Who’s after you, mom?” I asked.

“Them. They’re after my jewels. They’re taking everything. They’re not good people.”

At the time, I assumed her paranoia was just another aspect of her dementia. One more exciting side-effect of losing your mind. And it was, for the most part. But as it turned out (I discovered years later during an ebay search) they had ransacked her room. Taken her jewelry–giant amber beads from India, my great-grandmother’s delicate pearl necklace–and pawned what they could. When I confronted my father (who returned both aforementioned necklaces–but sold who knows what before I found out) he said it was to cover the cost of her living there. Which was confusing considering they had happily accepted my mother’s inheritance (which my grandmother gave up prior to her passing because we had no money and no options, my sister and I, so we went to her family looking for help) as payment for “housing” and “caretaking” despite the fact that she had been a productive–some might argue, the most productive– member of the community for 25 years and had never previously been asked to pay for room and board. And, didn’t that cover the cost? Then he said it was just so he could assess the “street” value of the jewelry but he had always intended to return the goods.

My sister handled the finances. I helped, but she was organized and efficient and incredible with the details. We were disgusted to be paying the community for what we felt she had earned after 25 years of service, of servitude. But, we had no other options at the time. Until we were so sickened with her care, or lack thereof, that we moved her into a home with a specialized (and locked) memory care unit. $5,595 a month. Her entire inheritance (minus the cost of her funeral) was gone by the time she was in the ground.

“He’s not a good man,” she’d finally said toward the end. Just before she lost all speech.

“No, mom. He’s not,” I’d acknowledged with such immense sadness and regret. Part of me wanted to lie and convince her that she hadn’t wasted her life following a man who couldn’t even be bothered to say a final goodbye when she was on her deathbed. I wanted to tell her her choices hadn’t all been misguided, that she had found meaning and beauty in her life.

But, all I could think about were the bruises on her wrists when I had come home from school one day, the red streaks on her jawbone after a misunderstanding with one of the other women, the fists pounding on her back as I screamed, “Please don’t kill my mom! Please!’ I remembered hiding behind locked doors, with pounding on the other end, the blacked out windows, and crouching under tables hiding from the cops who’d been called for the umpteenth time by the neighbors–which, it should be noted were half a mile away, but could still hear the screaming. I remembered running for the woods, memorizing escape routes, lessons in suicide, rantings of World War III. All I could see was years and years of of her wilting posture, hearing the screams and the “bitch, bitch, bitch” mantra of my dad’s diatribes. And I thought, this is good. It’s good that your illness has brought upon something real. Something true amidst all the make-believe. He was not good to you. He was not good to me. He was good to no one but himself.

And yet. Through it all. She was the most congenial person you’ve ever met. A ray of light through the blackest of nights. A positive presence even in the absence of hope. She was a problem-solver, a negotiator, a wily little thing who could get absolutely anyone to do absolutely anything. She had star quality. People wanted to be around her. She emitted confidence and tenacity. And, that smile. It could light up a room.

As my sister and I sang her Silent Night, she smiled up at us–as if to say, “I’m okay. I love you. Live and love and be happy.”–her eyes fluttered, half closed, face upturned, one hand in each of ours. She took her last labored breath. Exhaled, and died. Ten years ago.

I miss you every day, mom.