The first time I fed my mom

An essay about parenting a parent and learning to love whatever version of them is still here.

Aug 26, 2025

Hello dears,

The following is an essay that I started writing in April. It’s about the first time I fed my mom, and it has gone through many iterations. I’m not sure if the essay will ever be “done” or “perfect”, but so much about my mom has already changed since I first sat down to write it (thanks to Alzheimer’s), so I don’t want to wait any longer to release it into the world.

Thanks for reading! ♡

Alexis

person holding ice cream with red spoon — Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Spoonfuls of love

by Alexis Mera Damen

My mom laughed, then teased me like a child might—sticking out her tongue, making a little slurping noise, and smirking as she opened her mouth to let me spoon-feed her ice cream and raspberries.

I was feeding her for the first time. I held the spoon there for a second, unsure if she was refusing or just being funny.

As our roles have slowly reversed since her early-onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis in September 2021, I’ve stepped into a motherly role without ever giving birth. Is she eating? Is she sleeping? Is she happy? These are the things I worry about from 4,500 miles away in Amsterdam, where I now live. I visit her in sunny Ocala, Florida, three to four times a year, where she now resides in a memory care facility near my brother.

During a recent visit, I had finished work early on a Tuesday afternoon to spend a few hours together. I stopped at the market on the way—salad for me, Italian wrap pinwheels, pretzel crisps, and raspberries for us to share.

When I arrived, my mom and her caregiver had just returned from their daily walk around the pond in front of the main assisted living building. She looked happy to see me and flushed from the sun—I’m glad she still remembers me, I thought.

I dropped my things in her apartment. It’s more like a dorm room, but instead of a beer pong table, laptops, and takeaway containers, the closets are stocked with adult diapers, Ensure, and Vaseline to keep her dry, aging skin from cracking.

We sat at a table for two in the facility's dining room, where the lunch staff served her a small bowl of chicken soup and crackers. I watched her stir bits of crumbled crackers from the soup into her glass of lemonade and then take a sip. It was both heartbreaking and oddly beautiful to observe. This version of her seems softer, looser, more uninhibited. Is she closer now to her truest self?

She has become more playful, expressive, and less reserved. Perhaps Alzheimer’s is allowing my mom to grow into someone she never had permission to be. Or are these just the excuses I make so it’s easier to process and accept how much she has changed and how much of her I’ve already lost?

The facility has an open floor plan, with residents’ rooms lining the edges. There’s a kitchen in the center with seating around it, and a back area with a large TV for movies and sing-alongs. The dining area is in front, adjacent to a cozy living room with a fake fireplace, bookshelves, chairs, and an activities table.

I suggested that she eat more of the soup, but she seemed confused and reluctant, so I handed her a piece of the wrap I brought. It worked better—food she can eat with her hands is easier for her nowadays. I don’t care what she eats, as long as she’s eating.

The lunch staff brought her a personal-sized ham and cheese quiche with a side of soggy green vegetables and chopped beets. She ignored the greens and beets entirely and fumbled with the quiche until I cut it into four triangles, like I would for a toddler.

Cutting up my mom’s food felt bizarre, like I had suddenly become the mother of a helpless child, but it was also intimate and sweet. A moment I suspect I’ll smile about in the future, knowing I did everything I could to help and comfort her.

The nurse stopped by our table with my mom’s "vitamins" (aka her blood pressure and anxiety meds) crushed into what looked like yogurt. We stopped the "brain meds" a while ago because just as my family and I had suspected, they don’t work.

As this disease has wiped out my mom’s critical thinking abilities, I’ve adapted to making medical and financial decisions on her behalf. I’ve also, on many occasions, wanted to opt out of this strange new role of parenting my parent. But the most painful part has been wishing that I could have been her daughter (in the traditional sense) for longer.

At first, focusing on admin and solving problems helped me avoid my feelings, but the slow-burning anticipatory grief that comes with the long goodbye has worn me down in what feels like all the right places. I’ve become more centered. I’ve learned to appreciate life’s small pleasures, to slow down and work less, and I’ve realized that most things I used to worry about don’t matter. Each new small loss of the mom I once knew still stings just as much as the one before, but it has also taught me to be more compassionate and understanding of myself and others.

My mom obediently opened her mouth while the nurse fed her a spoonful of the yogurt and medication mix. I couldn’t believe it when she didn’t resist.

When we had moved her into assisted living in January 2023, she frequently asked to go home and resisted most care. She’d roll her eyes when a nurse came by her apartment to administer her meds or when I encouraged her to join activities like bingo or Cornhole.

But now she’s content. I suspect the simplicity of life in memory care soothes her. She’s less anxious, less fidgety, and it feels as though she has surrendered. She has forgotten about the beginning and the time before all this. Sometimes I wish I could forget everything, too. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the time when the only person I had to take care of and worry about was myself.

During this visit, I saw glimpses of the old her; smiling and doing her best to participate in activities and socializing with other residents and staff. Her frustration and agitation with the disease that stole her memory, forced her into early retirement, and that now requires her to have 24/7 assistance appeared to have washed away. What a relief. For a brief moment, I felt like a regular daughter again.

I held her hand, gazing at her, soaking it all in, soaking her in. I wanted to remember her in that moment. She looked at me, and I wondered if she was trying to hold onto me, too.

Dessert included a small Styrofoam cup of white ice cream. Vanilla? Lemon? I couldn’t tell by the smell. She struggled with it. Took a spoonful, then pushed it away. Took another, then gave up. I placed a container of raspberries in front of her, and she ate them with her spoon. Success, I thought. I suggested that she try them with the ice cream. She gave it a go, but kept struggling.

I don’t know if it was impatience, instinct, or just simply wanting her to enjoy something, but I grabbed her spoon, scooped a raspberry and some ice cream, and fed it to her.

She laughed in a way I hadn’t seen for a while. It made me laugh, too. I kept going. Spoon after spoon, bite after bite. I even raised my hand and circled it around, like I was flying an airplane into her mouth, instantly regretting it, until I realized she was playing along — making faces, playfully dodging the spoon, doing that thing kids do when they want to be silly and difficult but also loved.

And for a moment, we were just a daughter and her childlike mother sharing raspberries and ice cream and some strange blend of intimacy and absurdity.

Something shifted for me that day. I stopped trying to hold on to the version of her that I had already lost and started learning how to love the one that’s still in front of me.