45-year-old Joey Daley lives in Dublin, Ohio. Every week, he pays a long visit to his mother, Molly, who is suffering from dementia.
Molly, 67, was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia two years ago. The symptoms of this type of dementia are often hard to catch. Patients who suffer from Lewy Body Dementia can fail to be diagnosed for years.
After diagnosis, patients with Lewy Body Dementia can still continue to exhibit inconsistent symptoms. They may suffer from memory loss, have short attention spans, struggle sleeping, or experience hallucinations.
For Molly, who now resides in a nursing home, all of these symptoms are present. She can also no longer bathe herself, nor remember to take her own medication.
The latest time Joey went to go visit, things became even worse than he’d last remembered.
It began when Molly failed to recall her husband, Joey’s father. Joey decided not to let this faze him too much; his parents had divorced when he was just one year old.
Later in the day, however, Joey brought the topic back up again. “So you weren’t sure who my dad was. Do you know who my mom is?” he asked tentatively.
In the video, Molly seems to mull over this for a moment before replying, “No… I guess I don’t. Who is that?”
Joey is stunned. “My mom? You don’t know who my mom is?” he asked his mother.
“I have to think about it… Tell me.”
“I’m Joey,” he said. “Who’s my mom?” he repeated.
Again, Molly says she doesn’t know. But after Joey reminds her that she is, in fact, his mother, she remarks, “That’s what I thought.”
But the memory doesn’t last long. Molly asks not a moment later, “Say that again, who your mom is?” Joey stares, then repeats, “Who’s my mom?”
“I don’t know,” is the response he receives.
This exchange continues for several more seconds before Joey asks his mother if she thinks he’s a friend or if she even recalls where they met. Molly asks if they’d met at school, but says she can’t remember anything further.
Joey then bluntly asks, “You don’t know who my family is?”
Molly becomes confused, then asks if Joey is her daughter before saying the words that shatter Joey’s heart. “I don’t even know if I knew you.”
Her son, across the table, blinks back tears. “Don’t I look familiar?”
“I don’t know,” Molly replies. “I think so.”
The conversation ends there. Later in the video, Molly can be seen touching Joey’s arm before saying, “I love you so much,” but viewers are left uncertain whether she recognizes who she is actually speaking to.
When Joey returns to his car after the visit, he finally allows himself to break down. “This day I will never forget. When your mother doesn't know who you are, she knows my name but doesn't know who I am,” he mourned.
“I just want to get back in and ask her one more time – ‘Who am I?’ And have her say, ‘My son.’”
Since Joey has posted the footage of this tragic visit online, he’s been contacted by media outlets and people across the internet alike. Many of the viewers are reaching out to him to express their sympathy and offer moral support through this rough emotional realization.
Others, however, insist that he already badgered his mother far too much, especially considering that she was already struggling to remember in the first place.
Joey explained, “My mother's mental health changes day by day, in this video she wasn't acting much differently from how she had been in episodes two, three and four...I just hadn't thought to ask the question before.”
Although rewatching and reliving the moment is harrowing for Joey, he vows that he will continue sharing these visits on YouTube for others to see. He wants people all over the world to become more aware of dementia and to be more supportive of family and friends who might be affected by the condition.
“Everyone has a mother and it's hard to imagine your mother not knowing who you are. You can see from watching the footage how devastating it is,” he added. “I am exposing my weaknesses and vulnerabilities but I wanted to bring awareness to dementia and that is more important.”
Our hearts go out to him.
