The forgetting gives us an important opportunity. We can remember
Christmas morning, 2019. My daughter handed my wife a small gift tied with a beautiful bow. Evelyn opened the box to find a flat, cream-colored dish, four-inch-square and rimmed with gold. Painted on the face of it was a simple message . . .
“Remember I love you Mom.”
Evelyn smiled, but my voice caught in my throat. In fact, everyone gathered around our tree was silent. The manufacturer of the dish couldn’t have imagined the significance of the inscription. Just one week earlier Evelyn’s neurologist had confirmed her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Without thinking
“Remember.” We speak the word without thinking.
Remember to pick up the dry cleaning. Remember your meeting. Remember, I’ll be home late tonight.
We take for granted that we will remember. But remembering is a privilege that can be lost. Like good health, a longtime friendship, or a car that daily does what we need, memory is a gift to be cherished and nurtured.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about memory. Since my wife’s diagnosis, I have grieved the departure of her memory and struggled to cope with my new role of remembering for her. Of everything added to my growing list of caregiver duties, to remember feels the most urgent.
Of everything added to my growing list of caregiver duties,
to remember feels the most urgent.
Of course, I can’t force my wife to remember. I’m learning to expect her to forget where her coat is hanging, or what I’ve told her three times about when we’re leaving and where we’re going. As much as I wish I could interrupt the river of forgetting, as much as I’d pay for a pill that would make it stop, I have no hope that it will.
Determined to remember
It could happen to me someday, too, God forbid. So for now, I’m determined to remember. And in this new blog I’ll commit to remembering the forgetting.
I’ll work not to make this a self-absorbent wallow in woe-is-me sadness. But this journey through grief and loss and confusion occasionally takes me to an insight or question that might be worth sharing.
I know I’m not alone. More than 6 million Americans are living with this disease, which means the children and spouses of these sufferers are all around us.
Remember together
Some who read this blog will be friends or family. Others will read just to discover some encouragement for coping with their own variety of loss. But especially I’m hoping this will be a resource for other Alzheimer’s caregivers—a place to discover their experiences are shared by others and their questions are not unique or wrong.
None of us chose this journey. All of us need to find meaning in each unexpected turn of the path, confidence for each new faltering step.
Some of it we may wish to forget. But let’s not waste our time while we walk this uncomfortable path. Let’s discover what we can learn along the way, how we can grow because of the struggle. Let’s not curse the forgetting. Let’s remember.
Photos by Rob Laughter and by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash