At my mom and dad’s gym, they had a wall of advertisements, and one of them was a picture of my dad doing yoga with the caption, “The best is yet to come.” When we moved my dad into the dementia unit and stopped taking him to yoga, my mom asked them to take it down because it made her too sad. The best for him has passed. The best for our relationships with him has passed.

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be posting two related paintings from the Fractured Memories series. Note that the baby elephant in this painting is still sticking close and following behind the adult elephant. This represents our relationship before the dementia: still connected, with the path to our future opening up before us, Dad leading the way.