Yesterday afternoon I went to go see my grandmother, Baba, at her long term care facility, or as she has taken to calling it, her home. Its been about three weeks since I last got to go down and see her as I wanted to wait for all the germs that have been floating around my house to politely let themselves out the back door for the rest of the year (hopefully). The last thing I needed to do was carry some germs with me down to Baba's home and get her sick. So yesterday I resumed my weekly trip, a half hour drive to spend an hour with Baba, and a hope that she would remember who I was. Well, she did. I don't think she remembered my name until I told her, but she immediately knew that I was her grandson without telling her. Of course, the first words out of her mouth were, "I don't recognize you," followed immediately by her telling everyone around her that I was her grandson, nice and loud to make sure that they understood. When I arrived, I found her finishing dinner in the dining room and helping another lady eat her food. Despite her failing mental capacity, she still has a deep seated desire to help others. She looked a little ornery, complained that the food was late, but as soon as we made it back to her room, she perked up and her spirits lifted. We proceeded to talk for an hour or so, mostly me telling her about my life, what I do for work, where I live, who my wife is, and all about my son (who she still remembered easily). There is more and more that she can't remember, even simple things like the fact that I am married. At one point, when talking about my son, she asked who the mother was. I reminded her that I was married and that my wife gave birth to our son. There were a lot of other things that she forgot. Even simple things like what she watched on TV earlier in the day was lost to her. There is less and less that she is capable of holding on to despite her best efforts to do so. Over this past weekend she fell and bumped her head, nothing serious, but enough to warrant a trip to the hospital where my parents went and stayed with her for a few hours. Three days later and she didn't remember that my mother went to see her at the hospital. The one thing that is still there is her personality. That at least, is the bright side of all of this, and the fact that she is still happy to have visitors come and see her, even if she doesn't always remember who they are.
Dementia is a weird, depressing disease. I get little snippets of what its like from Baba, and I can honestly say I hope this never happens to another one of my family members. She has said, "Its like hell, sometimes I don't even know who I am or what I am doing. Sometimes nothing comes, its there, but I just don't know." To me it seems like this current stage she is going through, one in which memories become more and more distant entities that are incapable of being grasped, is incredibly frustrating to her. Sometimes even specific words to describe things elude her and she substitutes either Russian or Spanish words in their place. Its as if her brain is slowly drifting away, the connections beginning to disintegrate and disappear despite her best efforts to keep them intact. She knows what is happening to her and she can't do anything about it. To me, its akin to a person lying paralyzed on a hospital bed with everything they need just out of reach. There are fuzzy pictures of family, friends, events, and milestones hanging all around the bed, a plethora of them in random discombobulated order. Occasionally one will fall off its thin filament holding it in place and drift past the face staring at them in bed. For that one instant clarity resumes, the picture comes into focus, and a memory is revived, for a little while at least, until the picture disappears and takes its place in the back of the bunch. The pictures are in constant motion, moving forward and backward, sideways, downwards and upwards, confusing the order in which things happen so that nothing is ever the same. Even the concrete pictures, those cemented in from early childhood by a concrete cast begin to crumble and fade away. Any effort to bring the pictures closer usually fails and the lady in the bed, Baba, is left wondering about life, about her family, about everything. Her life now consists of a daily routine, a present day slide show that she lives through, as soon as a slide pops on the screen and then disappears, its gone, only sometimes drifting up towards the ceiling and attaching itself to the plethora of memories already there. How do we maintain these connections to what we know, to what we love, to who we are? If I knew, I would categorically organize all the pictures and let them show on an never ending loop for Baba, yet I can't.
I mentioned at one point yesterday how I can't wait to teach my son how to climb trees, just like she did when I was three years old. She surprised me when she asked if I remember the branch of the tree and how I used to sit there. I of course remember quite vividly the tree, a Japanese red maple, a small tree back then which I am sure has grown into a much larger, much more formidable climbing tree. I asked if she remembered the red leaves and the gray bark and she said yes. A few months ago when I asked her if she remembered teaching me how to climb trees she had no clue that she ever did that. Yet yesterday it seemed that picture that was floating near the back recesses of her mind came into focus for a little bit, enough for her to share her memory with me and how I used to love climbing that tree. For her current mental capacity, diminished as it is, she still has at least a small grasp on reality and some memories. It comes and goes, certain pictures coming into focus while others retreat into the fog, and more often than not, the ones that retreat into the fog don't return. She couldn't remember that I had a brother, or much else, but she knew my son and she remembered the tree she taught me to climb. For me, that is enough. Even if she doesn't remember any of that, I hope at least her personality remains so that she is open to me telling her about her life and what I remember about it. Nothing lasts forever and I know that eventually she probably won't even remember her name, if she still does, but for now, I will take what I can get.
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