As She Forgets

Called her last night and she said she hadn't heard from me in ages.  I reminded her that I'd called for her birthday 2 weeks previously.   Then, I thought, perhaps her concept of 'ages' has changed since she spends so much time alone.  I asked if she'd taken her meds.  She'd taken them in the morning thanked me for mentioning since she'd forgotten the evening dosages.   A friend of my cousin's visited that day and for her the pleasure of the visit ceased early since, as she related, they had little in common, she couldn't remember whether the child with the woman was that woman's first or last.   She didn't want to ask as she did not want her not remembering to be the subject of gossip.   The woman didn't know when to go she said, irritably.  I asked, "are you bored because you're forgetting or forgetting because you're bored?"  She says, "50-50".   Deep silence that turns to the dead air of the phone.   I realize  she has forgotten that she is on the phone, speaking to me.  "Dearest," I say, " would you like me to call you tomorrow?"  "No", she replied, "call me on Saturday."   I ask, "whose that man who answered the phone?"  "David", she says, with her usual assumption that I know everyone she knows, only this is the first time  in the 37 years I've known  her it is said in a crotchety tone.  I silently pray that David reminds her and ensures she takes her medication to keep the blood sugar level, to keep the hypertension even.

'She', is my mother.   She is forgetting.   Dementia?  Alzheimer's?  I do not know but I realize that those words and their meanings and other words confined to the aging process will soon form an intimate part of my vocabulary.   She has had a series of mini-strokes over the past 10 years, transient ischemic attack (TIA ) is  the correct term she'd always tell me.  Now those TIAs are doing a number with her cognitive ability and I get the "privilege of observation from X miles away. 

She has always been tough, strong-willed, single -minded.  She has always walked her own path and for me, observing, it has always been difficult to figure out what /who she gave a damn about.  She took her responsibilities very seriously and consciously - her job, financially giving to her aunt, grandmother,  her son, her brother, her charities.  She lived a 'hard-scrabble' life and I think her seriousness , her parsimony, brought about by necessity, her "my way or the highway" attitude  pushed others away.    She accepted being alone and found ways to find enjoyment in it.

Listening to her on that telephone and yes, feeling love for her, I wished I could jump on a plane to get to her before she forgets me completely but my life does not allow for that.  So instead,  as she forgets, I remember, with a sense of peace, her wry humour, her arrogance which masked a shyness, her calm demeanour which on rare occasions exploded into a terrible temper, her baking and canning efforts which were always shared with friends and the neighbourhood, her ways of recycling and upcycling long before it was in vogue, her deep dislike of me, underlaid I believe, by a certain sense of loyalty because she made me.  

I remember the walks we took, since a love of nature we had in common.  Those walks were sometimes times of embarrassment to me since fallen apples or plums or apricots or rose hips were picked up to be used for canning, flowers were snipped for their immediate beauty and for future seeding.  Long country drives not only meant admiration of the scenery but collection of fallen straw to be used as mulch or the scooping up of 'horses' podoodies',  as she named it, for manure.  Coming  to Jeannie's house always meant work but her door was always open, she shared what she had and take her as you met her,  I think, with a chuckle.    

I recall our telephone relationship where we got to know and love each other, me, never getting to be anything but the child, she constantly reinforcing her role as mother, more for her sake than mine.  She became a good friend over the years and we both have the phone bills to prove it.  Now, it seems our relationship  is near dead because she often does not answer the phone.  On Saturday when I call I hope she answers because I need to know whether she is still driving.  I need to find work , win the lottery,  anything, so that I can help this woman whose skin I have, whose voice I have, whose eyes I have, whose parsimony I've adopted , who is my mother.

Are you having to face the reality of your loved one (s) dementia?.  Are you like me, grieving the living?  Apart  from my mother,  I  grieve for my friend  lost to drug addiction, my ex whose day starts firstly with church and secondly with puncheon rum, another friend  whose sick with a spinal vertebrae issue and does not wish to communicate anymore.     I love and miss them all so much.   Please share your  thoughts.     

Until

Found out that dementia is the overall term for this forgetfulness disease.  Alzheimer's is one type of dementia.