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dementia. It comes and goes, but mostly it’s coming these days. I gave her all the broad strokes—my dad died, she’s living alone, we know, we know, it’s time to get her settled, she’s stubborn, she’s independent, and there’s the whole question of what to do now. Move her, or does she stay? And she’s always been much more strident and righteous and defiant. Not going gently into the good night.
    For the record, every single JetBlue employee I spoke to knew exactly what happened on that plane. They not only knew all about my mother’s tantrum but, just like the game telephone, each and every time I spoke with someone new there seemed to be an added bit of shocking information. I was waiting for someone to tell me she stormed the cockpit, demanding to fly the plane to New York. I can only imagine the watercooler conversation about the crazy woman and the window seat.
    My mother refused to speak to anyone. She felt duped and lied to and thought that the fat girl should have gotten up. “My God, she took up two goddamn seats.” And then she said, “I always, always have to sit at the window.”
“Why,”
I asked her,
“why?”
    “Fuck you,” she hung up on me.
    Trying to calm my mother down was near impossible. And just like the JetBlue employees, my mother’s version of the story became more and more exaggerated and embellishedeach and every time she told it—repeated it, shared it. By the time I spoke with my cousin Carol, my mother was claiming she was strip-searched and held prisoner in a room, naked … 
without a television
.
    “Without a television?” my cousin asked her, feigning shock and awe.
    “Yes, that’s correct, I couldn’t watch my shows.”
    “I’m so sorry, Aunt Bea. That must’ve been so hard and difficult.”
    “Yes, it was. But they gave me a private airplane and ten million dollars.”
    Dementia is filled with surprises. Unfiltered surprises. It is an unwanted visitor with a selective memory.
    Shortly thereafter, I moved my mom to New Mexico, not far from my brother, where she was about to start living in an assisted-living facility.
    When we arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport, I witnessed her interaction with the bag handler at baggage claim. After he took her luggage and placed it on the conveyor belt, she handed him a crisp ten-dollar bill, telling him, “You’re a lovely, lovely man.” He was mighty appreciative of her generosity. I witnessed her stepping through security with the alarm going off, because of her hip replacement, and her retelling the same joke about the Vegas slot machines to all and anyone who would listen and laugh. It made her feel important, valued. It added a little bounce to her walk. And as we walked to the gate, I sensed the first stages of panic; it was there, in her eyes. Right there in her eyes, a bit of worry and fear.
    She stopped and looked at me. “Did you get me a window seat?”
    “Yeah, Ma, I got you a window seat.”
    “Really? You did?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Good,” she said. “Good.”
    As the plane revved up its engines and was about to take off, my mom took my hand and squeezed it. Staring out the window, watching the plane disappear into the gorgeous white clouds, she turned to me after a few long moments and said, “Up here in the clouds, I can dream all I want.” Then she pointed to two clouds, almost intertwined, and she said with such joy, “See that. See that. They’re dancing together. Just like Daddy and me. You can only see this kind of magic from a window seat.”
    In that moment, on that plane, the lines on her face smoothed out, and her eyes filled with remembrance, as if every memory were intact. A twinkle. She started to giggle. She was so very happy, content—an awakening of sorts.
    “Thank you so much,” she said. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
    It was here that my mother had always been able to see and feel and imagine clouds dancing, forms taking shape, lovers kissing, the