Another transitional passage is upon us. Mom has to leave her current residential treatment and move somewhere else. Somewhere else then somewhere else then somewhere else. In a way, this year, she’s been on her own type of diaspora - forced to move from her own home and then not finding home or rest or refuge anywhere else, moving, fleeing, over and over.

After we toured the assisted living where she may move to next, my mom and I took a walk. On the walk she described feeling that there’s nowhere for her to fit in. That she wants to be better but sees no way out of this. At the assisted living she said both, ‘what makes you think I’m gonna move in here?’ and ‘if I move to any place like this, it would be this one.”

On our drive back to the residential house, she looked out the window at the handful of pedestrians walking around the neighborhood and said, “I see them and think, I would do anything to trade places with any one of them.” She wants to be better but doesn’t want to be herself - this self.

How do we find acceptance? Both my mom and I want her old self back. And both of us are afraid we’ll never see her, know her, again. Not sure how we got here or where we are going next. I am worried about this transition too.

I’m thinking about the word refuge - a condition of feeling safe or sheltered from danger or trouble. I want this for my mom. I want this for all of us.