Picking Up Spares On Memory Lanes
I went for a walk today. I remembered to bring the book of short stories I’m currently reading but I forgot my water bottle. I only walked for a little over an hour and it was in the low 60s with a good breeze so forgetting the water wasn’t a big deal. But it did make me think. Especially since today was also my weekly call to my mother. She has dementia and is in a memory facility many states away. I’m fascinated by what her brain chooses to remember. If choice is actually involved that is. I watch as her conscious and subconscious thought processes play badminton with each other. There’s a lot of repeated waiting for the shuttlecock to come back down within striking distance. My mother was a raging narcissist. We also had our good moments. They were like the few beads left on a vintage gown. They were shiny but there weren’t enough of them to make things elegant. Still, I’m remembering more of those moments these days. I can’t really say that I’m forgetting all the unpleasant or dysfunctional or unconscionable moments but I am choosing to forget the pain. Pain is funny. You can remember feeling physical pain but thankfully you don’t actually feel the pain in your body when you remember it. You remember how awful it was but you only relive the the emotions you felt during the pain. Emotional pain seems to be much more tech savvy. It keeps lifelike audio and visual records. You can push play anytime. Sometimes you wake up or look up and it’s playing all on its own.
I’m a fast processing, creative person so I brain-dump quite a bit. There’s a lot I choose to forget, or at least to shove into deep, difficult to access storage. The emotional pain of my childhood is getting fuzzier. The closer my mother gets to dying the less vibrant those memories become. It doesn’t hurt that my mother has become a kinder, gentler person. Dementia has done that for her. I know it makes some people mean but it’s the opposite for her. She’s still in there though. She can lash out unexpectedly with a nasty comment but those comments are now aimed at life in general not at any one person. She can be very lucid for a sentence or two and then speak a bunch of nonsense. But she never forgets who I am. She sometimes thinks I’m younger than I actually am but she knows my voice. She knows I’m her daughter. The irony is fierce. I am her anchor to this life.
I am kind to her. Why not? I wouldn’t wish dementia on anyone. I see her during those badminton games watching herself forget. I see her strain. I also see her find grace for herself. She’s kind of amazing that way. She’s stronger than I imagined she would be. But that’s not fair. She’s aways been strong. Even when she was self-centered. Even when she was cruel knowingly or not. Who knows? I’ll never know. Not just because she has dementia now and doesn’t remember why she behaved as she did. She lies. Always has. Probably always will. It less frequent now. It takes mental finesse to lie. Her finesse reserves are running on fumes. This makes the mental gymnastics she does manage to do, all the more impressive. What am I learning? That we make choices about what to remember, about what to forget, and ultimately about what to forget to remember.
Cinse Bonino
2023
