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In a first-person essay published by Being Patient on Oct. 7, 2026, artist and retired professor Robert G. Fishman recounts how his mother’s dementia changed his approach to caregiving. He says a series of paintings about landscapes losing detail helped him stop trying to force her to remember and pay attention to their remaining connection.
Artist Robert G. Fishman says a series of paintings depicting landscapes gradually losing detail helped him come to terms with his mother’s dementia and change how he responds to her. In a first-person essay published by Being Patient on Oct. 7, 2026, Fishman describes moving from correcting his mother and wishing she would return to her former self toward meeting her where she is now.
Fishman writes that he spoke with his mother daily after she was widowed in 1999. She lived alone in Florida and moved to an independent living facility at about age 91. He initially interpreted later changes as normal aging. By age 94, she was struggling to use her phones, he says, and a visit in late 2023 revealed a sharp decline in her living conditions: her refrigerator was empty, and her apartment smelled of cat urine.
A neurologist diagnosed early-stage dementia, according to Fishman, but his mother rejected the diagnosis and declined further testing. He says she could still sound like herself on the phone, which made it harder for him to recognize the extent of the changes. His mother had feared developing Alzheimer’s after her own mother was diagnosed at 73 and died seven years later, he writes.
After persuading his mother to move closer to the family in Maryland, Fishman struggled with anger, grief and guilt. He describes correcting her and becoming frustrated when she could no longer do familiar tasks. As he returned to painting, he began repeatedly simplifying landscape paintings, removing details until recognizable forms became less distinct. He later understood the work as a way to represent his mother’s changing memory. Four paintings became the series he calls “The Art of Forgetting.”
How the Paintings Changed His Care
Fishman’s account offers a family caregiver’s perspective on a difficult distinction: memory loss does not mean a person has disappeared. He writes that memories faded, but that emotion, connection, recognition and comfort in a familiar voice remained. Those are his observations of his relationship with his mother, not a clinical assessment of how dementia affects everyone.
The essay also describes the emotional strain of caring for a parent while grieving changes in the relationship. Fishman says painting gave him a way to make sense of what he could not control. He reports that it helped him let go of trying to make his mother remember and instead focus on what was still possible between them. His experience may help readers understand one caregiver’s adjustment, while individual experiences of dementia and caregiving vary.
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From Florida to Maryland Care
Fishman is a retired college professor and nonprofit executive, as well as a visual artist and author, according to his Being Patient biography. He says that he first noticed small changes in his mother a few years after she moved to independent living, but daily phone calls concealed some of the practical difficulties he later saw in person.
His mother resisted moving into assisted living near her Florida home, telling the family, “Over my dead body,” Fishman recalls. The family persuaded her to relocate to Maryland, which addressed some practical concerns but did not resolve his own emotional response. Eventually, he says, they moved her into a memory care unit about 10 minutes from their home. Fishman also says his experience inspired the paintings and his children’s book, Bubby’s Still Here.
““Over my dead body.””
— Robert G. Fishman, recalling his mother’s response to assisted living
Limits of the Personal Account
The essay is Fishman’s personal account, not a clinical report or independent evaluation of his mother’s condition. It does not give the date of her diagnosis, identify the neurologist, or provide details of any subsequent assessment. His mother declined further testing, according to his account, so the source does not establish what additional testing might have shown.
The article also does not specify her current level of care or provide a medical update beyond Fishman’s statement that she lives in a nearby memory care unit. It cannot establish how other people with dementia experience memory loss, or whether painting would have the same effect for other caregivers.
Visits Continue in Memory Care
Fishman says he now visits his mother at the memory care unit near his home and tries not to correct her when she is mistaken. The essay does not announce a new project, treatment development or scheduled follow-up. Its reported next step is the ongoing practice he describes: spending time with his mother without demanding that she remember as she once did.
Key Questions
Who wrote “The Art of Forgetting”?
Robert G. Fishman, a retired professor and nonprofit executive who is also a visual artist and author, wrote the first-person essay published by Being Patient on Oct. 7, 2026.
What is “The Art of Forgetting”?
It is the name Fishman gives to a group of four paintings developed from a larger series in which he repeatedly removed details from landscape images. He says the work helped him understand and cope with his mother’s changing memory.
What does Fishman say changed in how he treats his mother?
He says he stopped trying to make her remember or correcting her when she was wrong. He now tries to enter her world during visits rather than expecting her to return to his understanding of the past.
What is confirmed about his mother’s diagnosis?
Fishman writes that a neurologist diagnosed his mother with early-stage dementia. He says she rejected the diagnosis and declined further testing; the essay does not provide medical records or details of a later evaluation.
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