Smile!

When my mother's dementia started, at first it was just that she wasn't taking in new information; she still knew all of her past.

More recently there has been a split, where she sometimes thinks there is another home and another set of twins. She misses her home and her youngest children and worries about them, even when she is in her home with them.

It doesn't help that we only have very old pictures available. The most recent family portrait is about twenty years old, but most are older than that. My mother looks at pictures of my sisters when they were ten and twelve and is not confident that these forty-year-old women are the same. My sisters weren't even blonde yet when they were twelve.

It's because we all hate having our pictures taken. We mainly wish we were thinner, though we might also wish for more hair or less hair or smoother skin. That last family portrait was taken after my father left, and it was a way of affirming that we were still a family. Maybe my sister-in-law pushed for it. I know she said we would take the next one when someone else got married - just one more reason to avoid marriage!

(This aversion to pictures among the family is also why pretty much every adult picture we have of my brother contains his now ex-wife.)

I knew it would be a hard sell, but I thought we needed to take some new pictures for Mom's sake. We were getting together on Easter; let's just take a few. No one fought me too much, because we love Mom. There was still some feet dragging when the time came, but everyone pretty much cooperated. I can see where a professional would do better.

My favorite picture was not posed. I was getting Mom and Maria into position. Honestly, I was snapping to create a feeling of there being no point in resisting, so just smile and pose. This is not a good picture, and it is blurred, but I feel it captures something.

I did get a regular picture with Maria, but then Julie got in, and the old pictures that confuse Mom are of the three of them. We decided on this group shot. I like it.

 Julie took my picture. I was a little horrified about the size of my arm - is it really that big? (Some of that's the angle, but it is big now, isn't it?) Still, we have to keep going. This is for Mom.

Then came my biggest challenge.

"Can you smile more?"

"That will take a lot of work."

I started trying to tell jokes, but I was taking too long to set them up. If I had been capable of suddenly expelling any gas loudly - regardless of which end it came from - that would have done the trick. Of course, when he does laugh, he moves.

I probably spent too much time on that one. The battery was starting to get low, and Mom was getting a little tired of smiling - the downside of being the only one in every picture. Still, I kind of feel like this captures something too.

So that's my family: flawed, frustrating, and funny.

I can't rule out that we should do an actual portrait again at some point. My brother does intend to get married again, probably. If we do, do I trust the professional to be able to get him to smile? Do I make everyone eat a lot of fiber before we go? That poor photographer!

We'll work something out.