Happy memories are like safe houses; the path of life may be littered with thorns but you can always retreat to the safe house for some moments of peace.
My memories take me back to the day before mom died, the month and the year before. Those times are rendered more special because they had a certain luxury attached to them, the luxury of ignorance.
Because later, things fell apart and I could never go back to the stage of not knowing, it was time for a dose of reality. But reality is overrated and not palatable in heavy doses, hence, the retreat into the times before mom became a person with a fully functional mind in a non-functional body.
I like to believe that perhaps mom herself did the same for comfort during those interminable days in the hospital and at home or she would have gone mad.