What the mind forgets, does the heart remember? A Mother's Day Remembrance

Recently, when our PC was infected with a virus, in a panic I called my computer-guru, aka my hubby, alarmingly announcing that all my files were gone…lost…no where to be found! What should I do? How was I going to recall all the information I had stored?

“It’s all right”, shot back my calmly, amused husband.

"I have all our files backed up…stored on a separate hard drive…the memory is fine, baby.”

What? There was hope? Anxiety drained freely away as my weary confusion was replaced with the familiar comfort of knowing my collected knowledge was safe, but for a brief quarter of an hour I felt like an amnesia patient searching for her identity. That was the thought that carried forward a few days later when I called to check on her.

Is this how she feels?, I wondered.

Does she spend her days trying to retrieve what she spent a life time living?

Our conversation makes me believe this could be so, her every word spoken with a question mark, as if she just wants some validation that she exist. Gently, I coax her through the long distance visit with a usual exchange of uncomplicated dialogue, careful not to ignite any underlying frustration common with Alzheimer patients. I use the cloak of the phone line to shelter my own frustration and sadness from her as I’m forced to recite my identity to her every few moments.

“It’s me, mum. Karen, your daughter.”

“Oh, my daughter?“, comes her puzzled response each time.

It’s like someone keeps hitting the rewind button on the DVR. You’re watching your favorite show, but just when it’s about to end the concluding scene is skipped over and you’re back at the beginning of the episode. This is the circular quandary my mother and I are faced with at each sojourn. Coupled with the emotional wreckage spent on longing for just a second of recognition, leaves us both exhausted.

Is this all that remains to thread us together now, a common quest for recognition, each seeking the other? Do we need the past to validate the present? Can she know me without the memory of me? These are the questions that haunt a daughter mourning a mother not yet lost

I end our conversation with “I miss you, mum.” 

And prepare to accept the void once again, when suddenly my mother pipes out “I’m sure I love you.

“You do? You do. I love you too, mum.” 

I know now that what her mind has forgotten, her heart has remembered. I don’t need to be so afraid that the thread is unwinding. The memory isn’t lost; it’s just stored on another hard drive, the heart.  © 2010 Kiki Dahlke

Happy Mother's Day, mum. You are missed.

http://www.alz.org/index.asp

More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's.

Lilian "Betty" Reeves Coll 

<3 1923 ~ 2011<3