The Long Goodbye: A Phone Call I Wanted to Share with Mom

Seven years ago my sister and I sat in the doctor’s office with our mom and heard the diagnosis that changed everything:

Dementia.

Since that day, the woman who used to be vibrant, talkative, and quick to sing a lullaby has slowly faded. I know in my heart that her earthly address will probably one day be replaced by the golden streets of Heaven, and I hold that truth with both sorrow and gratitude.

There have been many tears over these long years of goodbye. I miss her fiercely. The ache intensifies on hard days—those moments when your heart feels like it’s breaking and loneliness presses in. On days like that I want nothing more than to pick up the phone and hear my mom’s voice. She had a gift for helping me process difficult situations with calm, clarity, and wise humor, often seasoning her counsel with generous laughter.

I miss her on sad days. But recently I experienced a different kind of day—a joyful, unexpected reminder of who she used to be.

It was one of those bright, anticipatory days: waiting, preparing, making decisions, filling out paperwork, signing forms, and exchanging texts and calls. Then we received the call we had been hoping for.

For a moment, as I squealed, danced a little jig, high-fived my husband, and hugged him, my first instinct was to dial my mom. “She would be so happy for us,” I thought. For those few minutes I managed to forget the reality of her current health and instead remembered the woman who used to answer the phone so quickly and joyfully.

So I invite you to play a small game with me for a few moments: pretend you are my mom. Your phone is about to ring and I’m on the other end. Ready?

Ring… ring…

After the greetings, you would probably ask that familiar, simple question, because you would already know most of the background: “Well…???”

I’d squeal and laugh and say, “WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!”

We would laugh, interrupt each other, and you’d want the entire story from start to finish. I’d tell you how we narrowed our choices to three and put an offer on our favorite. It had only been listed for two days. We moved fast and submitted an offer, but someone else had also made an offer, so we entered a multiple-offer situation. I braced myself for disappointment, but this time it didn’t fall through.

As we were driving to a beautiful mountaintop wedding I’d written about earlier, the text we had been praying for arrived: “Your offer was accepted. The contract is signed.” I would be careful to tell you that something could still go wrong until contingencies are removed in a couple of weeks, but in that moment I allowed myself to dance a little, plan furniture arrangements, and fall in love with the cozy townhouse that will hopefully be ours in two months.

You would respond, as you always did, “Well, I’ve been praying God would work out all the details, and He sure is!” And I would agree wholeheartedly: yes, He is.

As I imagined that conversation with Mom, I also pictured what she might do next if she were still healthy: likely hopping onto an airline site and booking a ticket to help with the move. In this little pretend moment, you can skip that part—I don’t know what I’d do if a caravan of loved ones actually showed up at my door with moving boxes!

This day was a reminder of how memory and imagination can be comforting. Even as dementia changes the person we love, the echoes of who they were remain with us: the voice we want to hear, the questions they’d ask, the prayers they’d offer. On happy days like this one, I let myself remember my mom as she was—wise, prayerful, and eager to celebrate good news—because holding those memories helps carry me through the ache of loss on the harder days.

PS. One of my most precious memories is the time Mom sang with us. That memory still warms my heart and reminds me of the gift she was.

PPS. If you’ve been following our house-hunting journey, you know how this whole adventure began. For now, I’m savoring the hopeful moment and looking forward to the next chapter.