Christmas Eve forgotten

I close my eyes and remember everything. Turning sixteen and nineteen and twenty-three. My first job and my first apartment on East 22nd street and who broke my heart and all of my friends I laughed and cried with and all of the days and nights and years before today. And I open my eyes and I am 33, the same age my father was when he died with the same number of children he had.  

All of these things, my memories, are an intangible part of me. And I think about my rapidly disappearing grandmother and wonder what she still remembers. I wonder what her mind is like. I imagine it to be dark hallways that lead to even darker rooms, walking slowly around a house but never finding the door to the room you wish to enter. She is forgetting more and more it seems. The dots have almost completely stopped connecting.

I think one of the more difficult aspects of Alzheimer's is the reality that it doesn't get better. Not the point that she is at. No amount of medication or good diet or exercise or yoga (as if she'd ever do that!) will improve her current state. I am sadly aware that my visits are forgotten shortly after I leave. I brought two of my children and my mother to see her on Christmas Eve. She opened the gifts we brought and ate Christmas cookies and spoke to my brother on the phone for his birthday and yet none of it clicked for her. There was no recognition of it being Christmas. 

Two days later my uncle visited and mentioned my visit on Christmas eve. She was adamant that no one had been to see her. I felt sad and also thankful that my kids had gotten another visit with her while she still knows who we are, even if she later forgets, they will remember.

The memory keeper

Last night was one of those nights that I couldn't talk without crying. I'm up visiting my mom and got to see my grandma for the first time in a few weeks, since I'd been sick with the flu for nearly two weeks. When I arrived at the nursing home bingo was going on in the dining room, so I went to my grandma's room to see if she might like to join in. To my surprise she said yes. So I wheeled her down and we grabbed a table and started to play. Ten minutes later my grandma glances over at my card and whispers," you have bingo!"  I said, " I know, but I think it's better to let someone else win." She squinted her eyes at me and pursed her lips and I expected her to fight me on it, then her face softened and she just shrugged her shoulders and said okay. Two minutes later a tiny old lady at the next table chirped 'Bingo!' I looked over at my grandma and smiled and she smiled back.

After bingo was over I went to her room and got a pack of cards and we proceeded to play gin rummy for an hour. There were moments that I felt myself getting choked up and I had to swallow hard and push it down. My entire life my grandmother and I have played cards. Sitting there with her at the table reminded me of so many afternoons of my childhood, sitting at her kitchen table, a little bowl of oyster crackers and glasses of iced tea within reach.

I got back to my mom's house in time for dinner and explained in detail to her my visit. She understands like no one else the emotional roller coaster this entire journey with my grandmother has been. After getting the kids bathed and tucked in we sat downstairs and discussed plans for the holidays. And laughed. A lot. We went upstairs and I went into my room and noticed my grandma's jewelry box on the dresser. I set it on the bed and lifted the lid and knew immediately this was gonna be tough. It was like little pieces of her life were in this box. A garnet ring, a pin from the telephone company she worked at, a charm from Hawaii, her highschool graduation pin from 1942. My mom came in the room and sat down on the bed with me and we began to look at stuff together. And I had the deep, heart breaking cry I had been avoiding for so long but desperately needed.

Today I will drive back to Brooklyn and take her jewelry box with me. I know that most of what's in there will never be worn by me, but I feel it's my job to keep it all. The rosary beads, the plethora of ugly gold hoop earrings and even the Mass card from a friend that passed away in 1994.  I will keep her memories for her, long after she has forgotten them all.

Goodbye Lou

I was just reading about Laurie Anderson's experience being there as Lou Reed died. His final moments. Holding him as his heart stopped beating, and how proud she felt and how full of wonder he looked. It sounds absolutely beautiful. I wonder if that is what it will really be like?

My mother and I talk a few times a day. Everyday. We have for my entire life. Recently I have begun to feel a little anxious if I see her call at an unexpected time. I think she will be delivering bad news. And bad news not just being that my grandmother has died. There are degrees of bad news. I am waiting for the day to come when I go to visit and she no longer recognizes me. For now things seem to have stabilized health wise. She is safe and miserable. That's it.

But as always, I am trying to find the good in all of this, and that is my mother. She has been amazing. She has spent countless hours, many more than me, at doctor's offices and rehab centers and social security offices and on the phone with banks and government agencies. I am so very proud of her. She has taught me how to be a good mother and a good daughter.  I know that there is no escaping it, that one day my mother will die. It terrifies me to imagine the day that I will wake up and not have her to call. I will be lost without her. I love you mama.