Zen Came Dementia

My formerly extremely narcissistic mother seems to be living a somewhat Zen kind of life now that she has dementia. She’s teaching me by positive example. She taught me a few other things in a good way on purpose when I was young: how to make her family’s marinara sauce and a really flaky piecrust. She also showed me the colors hiding underneath the colors we see, how to draw a tree, and how to balance a flower arrangement. Oh yes, and how to make a mirepoix, though hers had no celery, only onions, carrots, and flat Italian parsley sautéed in olive oil instead of butter. Mostly she showed me how not to be. She demonstrated egocentrism that bordered on severe narcissism. She looked away as my grandmother who lived with us abused me. She both followed and flaunted society’s rules. It was an interesting time in history for women back then when I was in grade school. Women couldn’t own property unless they were widows. They were not allowed to have their own checking accounts. My mother, who worked at that time as a window dresser for a large department store in our town, scandalized many people when she wore an old pair of plaid capri slacks to work. To add insult to injury they were speckled with paint, and she climbed ladders behind the store’s front display windows, the shape of her gorgeous bottom on full display in those pants. My father thought it was great. It was a mafia town. My family wasn’t part of it but we were Italian. We got a pass on many things.

My mother didn’t get a pass on dementia. Fortunately Alzheimer’s did pass her by. She still remembers me. She knows who she is though she cannot recognize a recent photo of herself. She’s frozen at a younger age in her own mind even as she crows proudly about being 90-years old. She’s actually 92 and a half. Her cognition is impaired, though there are moments when she seems to have her old amazing mental acuity for just the flash of half a moment. She does one other thing that is fascinating, something those of us who try to live life consciously strive to do. She stands apart from herself in her own mind and watches herself. She is aware even while dementia has robbed her of awareness. Most of the time she immerses herself completely in whatever is in front of her while simultaneously confusing and conflating past circumstances with the present day. She was a designer and an artist. She spends much of her time describing in excruciating detail whatever she notices around her. This description is repeated again and again. But when I ask her, “How are you doing, Mom,” she says, “I’m good, but you know — I’m not in control.” She partially means that other people are making choices for her. What she eats. When she eats. When she showers. What doors she can and cannot go through. But she also gets that she doesn’t get it. She’s watching herself be who and how she is now. That watching part comes up for air and visits with me for a nanosecond from time to time and then disappears almost before I can fully absorb its presence. Mostly I converse with snow-globe Mom, the one who lives only within the 3-foot circle around wherever she happens to be. I live for those moments when her watcher self comes to say hello. I wonder if she does too.

Cinse Bonino
2022