“Stephie, this is too much for me”, my mother sobbed on the phone.

I sighed. “I know, mom.” Then silence.

I didn’t know what else to say. I could hear her heavy breathing on the other end. My mother had been suffering from dementia for almost 10 years. She was often agitated. unpredictable. emotionally labile. and profoundly confused.

I’d just received a frantic call from her caregiver to beg for my assistance. Prior to that, my mother attempted to flee (again), out of the back door of the home she had lived in for over 20 years. In her fear, my mother used a wooden dowel as a bat to threaten her caregiver, who had attempted to stop her from escaping. My mother received the phone from my caregiver. The familiar voice worked: she came out from her…