Identity isn’t just for politics

This morning, I realized that the name of my poetry blog has a correlation with our journey with dementia.

Burt has a regular delusion [mostly in early morning or at evening into night](pardon the digression). I am one of several wives, his Capgras syndrome tells me. Often, I am not sure which one he is addressing.

I have taken to calling myself Number 1 as in Tamara #1. We were all named Tamara, but now this pattern has diverged. I don’t know where he gets Dorothy from, but there she is, too.

I named my poetry site Tamara, really. Lewy Body had nothing to do with that choice then. Now, I cling to it as a way of preserving the identity Burt’s Lewy is stripping from me.