Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (1): Collage of family photos of Madje Steber and daughter Maggie Steber at various times in their lives and before Madje was married. Center photo is Madje at 17 in high school in Electra, Texas.Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber: Collage of family photos of Madje Steber and daughter Maggie Steber at various times in their lives and before Madje was married. Center photo is Madje at 17 in high school in Electra, Texas.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (27): Head shot: Madje Stacy (her maiden name) at 17 years old graduating from High School in Electra, Texas.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (12): Madje’s Hand. A scientist who also played the violin, Madje’s hands were always intriguing. I photographed her hands all the time. The hand of Madje Steber lays across a sheet while she sleeps. Madje was a scientist but also played the violin and had the long thin agile fingers that facilitated her abilities with the stringed instrument. (I loved my mother's hands and photographed them often - daughter Maggie Steber).

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (10): Breakfast in Bed. Madje rose everyday at 5am for decades. Now she can have breakfast in bed anytime she wants. The Romanian and Cuban caregivers spoil their residents with love, like family. Madje Steber enjoys breakfast in bed, a morning ritual that went toward spoiling her as part of her care at Midtown Manor Assisted Living Facility. As someone who worked up until the age of 72, daughter Maggie wanted her to be able to sleep late, eat breakfast whenever she wanted, and in general, be spoiled rotten, in the final years of her life as she suffered from the decline of dementia.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (23): Madje with dark glasses: Madje Steber sits in the front lawn of Bay Oaks, an assisted living facility in the heart of Miami, Florida, after being moved there by her daughter when she could no longer live alone. Madje loved it and blossomed. There were little dogs and a few cats that lived there. She only stayed here for one year because she began to wander and had to move to Midtown Manor in Hollywood, Florida. COOL MADJE

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (29): A few weeks after moving into Bay. Profile of a proud woman. Oaks Home for the Aged (assisted living facility) in Miami, Florida, she blossomed, came out of the shell she had crawled into for the past ten years and was happy. Madje, one half Cherokee Indian, was 85 at time. Her happy days ended one year later when she began to wander and her daughter had to find a new place for her to live that would be more secure.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (13): Madje Steber smiles on the morning of her 86th birthday in her room at Midtown Manor in Hollywood, Fl, Aug. 16, 2006. Madje suffers from dementia and goes in and out of memory loss.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (7): Madje went through a period of wanting to wear black stockings and a black bra. We would dress her in them and she would walk around her room. It was grand to see my mother being sexy and allowed me to start seeing her as her own woman.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (28): In a Bad Mood, Madje sits in her rocking chair in her room. Madje Steber, who suffers from memory loss, worries out loud about nothing in particular, mumbling after having breakfast in her private room at Midtown Manor assisted living facility in Hollywood, Florida.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (26): Black Cat: Resident cats at Midtown Manor in Hollywood, Florida where Madje Steber lived. She sits in her wheelchair in the background. Madje loves cats and enjoyed watching them in the courtyard of the residence.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (22): Madje holding flowers in her room.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (20): Hands on military women group shot: IN SERVICE TO HER COUNTRY: During WWII, Madje Steber joined the US Army and trained with the signal corps at an army camp in Iowa. She was sent to Washington, D.C. after training and decoded secret messages at the Pentagon. Her beautiful wrinkled hands frame the signal corps group, with Madje smiling at the very center. 2004.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (2): Madje loved cats and this was a little kitten born at her house in Austin, Texas which she adopted. I loved my mother’s hands and it gave me a chance to photograph her hands. There’s another photo of just one of her hands as well.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (6): Bad Day for Madje, as she fights with everyone who comes near her. Suffering from dementia, Madje Steber had good days and bad ones. She went through stages of kicking, scratching, screaming, wandering, anger, fear, paranoia and gentle behavior, stages that all dementia victims suffer from and which pass.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (19): Madje looks scared in the back of a transport van taking her for x-rays of recent hip surgery.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (29): Madje Steber naps in the courtyard at her daughter, Maggie's, home in Miami, Florida. Maggie had to move Madje from the assisted living facility where she had lived for a year because she began to wander. Maggie looked at 50 facilities in a 3-county area and finally found Midtown Manor in Hollywood, Florida, about 30 minutes from Maggie's home. Things got better as they grew worse.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (16): Sleeping Beauty: Madje takes an afternoon nap in her long skirt. She sleeps in her bed with her stuffed kitty at Midtown Manor, her home, in Hollywood in 2008. Dementia and the medications she takes to fight memory loss causes Madje to sleep most of the day and night.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (11): Portrait of Madje (sitting on a stool). Madje sits for a portrait in the home of her daughter, Maggie Steber, during a weekend visit.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (9): Going to Lunch. Madje at her new home Bay Oaks in Miami two weeks after arriving. She walks through the gardens of Bay Oaks home for the elderly in in Miami/Florida, on the way to lunch. She takes her stuffed kitty everywhere with her as she falls into the childlike stage of Dementia. Bay Oaks is the first place Madje went to live when she began to lose her memory. Though she fought the place at first, she grew to love it and even blossomed socially until she began to wander and had to move to a locked facility for her own safety.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (15): After a rain, Madje goes outside and stops at a puddle to stare for a long time. The puddle only had a few palm trees reflected at the sides and the rest was empty. It made me think her memory must be like this. In many ways because of dementia, she is part of that reflection, not quite here in the real world, not quite there in her own reflections.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (14): Madje in a wheelchair in the courtyard of Midtown Manor in Hollywood, FL. She had broken a hip and was recovering.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (21): Madje Steber sits in the library at Bay Oaks Home in Miami, Florida, after moving from her longtime home in Austin, Texas. She resisted the facility for a few days when first arriving and then she blossomed.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (2): Bad for Madje. Confused, Madje sts in her wheelchair in the courtyard, her face in her hands and one pants leg rolled up.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (4): Madeleine Entertains. During supper Madeleine Schmidt leads a congo line to entertain residents but Madje is in her own world.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (24): Madeleine, Madje’s favorite caregiver, gives her a hug in her room at Midtown Manor in Hollywood, Florida.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (5): Madje Dies: Caregivers from her assisted living home gather around Madje Steber who died earlier that morning. Her daughter and a nurse washed her and dressed her, coming her long hair out and putting roses around her. This was her funeral before the cremation home came for her body.

Madje Has Dementia by Maggie Steber (8): The Last Rose. Madje on her deathbed.