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When my 91-year-old mother, Elia,
moved in with me,
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I thought I was doing her a service.
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In fact, it was the other way around.
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You see, Mom was having issues
with memory loss and accepting her age.
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She looked defeated.
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I tried to make her
as comfortable as possible,
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but when I was at my easel painting,
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I would peek over and see her just there.
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She'd be staring at nothing in particular.
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I'd watch her slowly climb the stairs,
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and she wasn't the mom I grew up with.
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I saw, instead, a frail,
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tiny, old woman.
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A few weeks went by,
and I needed a break from my painting.
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I wanted to play with
the new camera I had just bought.
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I was excited; it had all sorts of dials,
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buttons and settings I wanted to learn,
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so I set up my tripod
facing this large mirror,
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blocking the doorway
to the only bathroom in the house.
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After a while, I hear,
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"I need to use the washroom."
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"Five minutes, Mom. I need to do this."
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Fifteen minutes later and I hear again,
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"I need to use the washroom."
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"Five more minutes."
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Then this happened.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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And this.
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(Laughter)
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And then, this.
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(Laughter)
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I had my aha moment.
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We connected.
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We had something tangible
we could do together.
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My mom was born in a small
mountain village in central Italy,
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where her parents had land and sheep.
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At a young age,
her father died of pneumonia,
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leaving his wife and two daughters alone
with all the heavy chores.
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They found that they couldn't cope.
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So a very hard decision was made.
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Mom, the oldest at 13,
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was married off to a complete
stranger, twice her age.
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She went from being just a kid,
and was pushed into adulthood.
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Mom had her first child
when she was only 16.
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Years later, and now living in Toronto,
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Mom got work in a clothing factory
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and soon became manager
of a very large sewing department.
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And because it was full
of immigrant workers,
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Mom taught herself words
from translation books.
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She then practiced them in French,
Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish,
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Polish, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian,
all around the house.
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I was in awe of her focus
and determination to succeed
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at whatever she'd loved to do.
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After that bathroom aha moment,
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I practiced my newfound
camera skills with Mom as portrait model.
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Through all of this,
she talked and I listened.
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She'd tell me about her early childhood
and how she was feeling now.
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We had each other's attention.
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Mom was losing her short-term memory,
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but was better recalling
her younger years.
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I'd ask, and she would tell me stories.
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I listened and I was her audience.
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I got ideas.
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I wrote them down,
and I sketched them out.
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I showed her what to do
by acting out the scenarios myself.
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We would then stage them.
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So, she posed and I learned
more about photography.
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Mom loved the process, the acting.
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She felt worthy again,
she felt wanted and needed.
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And she certainly wasn't camera-shy.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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Mom laughed hysterically at this one.
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(Laughter)
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The idea for this image
came from and old German film I'd seen
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about a submarine called "Das Boot."
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As you can see, what I got instead
looked more like "E.T."
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(Laughter)
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So I put this image aside,
thinking it was a total failure,
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because it didn't reach
my particular vision.
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But Mom laughed so hard,
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I eventually, for fun,
decided to post it online anyway.
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It got an incredible amount of attention.
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Now, with any Alzheimer's dementia,
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there's a certain amount
of frustration and sadness
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for everyone involved.
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This is Mom's silent scream.
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Her words to me one day were,
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"Why is my head so full of things to say,
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but before they reach my mouth,
I forget what they are?"
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"Why is my head so full of things to say,
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but before they reach my mouth,
I forget what they are?"
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(Applause)
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Now, as full-time care partner
and full-time painter,
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I had my frustrations, too.
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(Laughter)
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But to balance off
all the difficulties, we played.
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That was Mom's happy place.
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And I needed her to be there, too.
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(Laughter)
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(Laughter)
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Now, Mom was also preoccupied with aging.
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She would say,
"How did I get so old, so fast?"
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So old.
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So fast.
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I also got Mom to model
for my oil paintings.
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This painting is called "The Dressmaker."
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I remember, as a kid,
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Mom sewing clothes for the whole family
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on this massive, heavy sewing machine
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that was bolted
to the floor in the basement.
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Many nights, I would go downstairs
and bring my schoolwork with me.
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I would sit behind her
in this overstuffed chair.
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The low hum of the huge motor
and the repetitive stitching sounds
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were comforting to me.
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When Mom moved into my house,
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I saved this machine and stored it
in my studio for safe keeping.
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This painting brought me
back to my childhood.
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The interesting part was that
it was now Mom, sitting behind me,
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watching me paint her
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working on that very
same machine she sewed at,
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when I sat behind her, watching her saw,
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50 years earlier.
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I also gave Mom a project to do,
to keep her busy and thinking.
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I provided her with a small camera
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and asked her to take at least
10 pictures a day of anything she wanted.
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These are Mom's photographs.
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She's never held a camera
in her life, before this.
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She was 93.
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We would sit down together
and talk about our work.
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I would try to explain
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(Laughter)
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how and why I did them,
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the meaning, the feeling,
why they were relevant.
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Mom, on the other hand,
would just bluntly say,
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"Si!"
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"No."
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"Bella!" or "Bruta."
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(Laughter)
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I watched her facial expressions.
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She always had the last say,
with words or without.
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This voyage of discovery
hasn't ended with Mom.
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She is now in assisted-living residence,
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a 10-minute walk away from my home.
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I visit her every other day.
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Her dementia had gotten to the point
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where it was unsafe for her
to be in my house.
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There's a lot of stairs.
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She doesn't know my name anymore.
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But you know what? That's OK.
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She still recognizes my face
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and always has a big smile
when she sees me.
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(Applause)
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(Applause ends)
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I don't take pictures of her anymore.
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That wouldn't be fair
or ethical on my part.
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And she wouldn't understand
the reasons for doing them.
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My father, my brother, my nephew,
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my partner and my best friend,
all passed away suddenly.
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And I didn't have the chance
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to tell them how much
I appreciated and loved them.
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With Mom, I need to be there
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and make it a very long goodbye.
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(Applause)
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(Applause ends)
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For me, it's about being present
and really listening.
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Dependents want to feel
a part of something, anything.
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It doesn't need to be something
exceptionally profound that's shared,
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it could be as simple as walks together.
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Give them a voice.
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Of interaction, participation,
and a feeling of belonging.
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Make the time meaningful.
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Life, it's about wanting to live,
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and not waiting to die.
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(Applause)
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(Applause ends)
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Can I get a wave and a smile
from everyone, please?
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(Laughter)
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This is for you, Mom.
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(Applause)