There are some advantages to not having short-term memory. Fights and grudges don’t last. You live in the here and now. I am learning a lot through this process, and I document the lessons in the hopes they will be comforting to me later and helpful to those who may find themselves in my position now.

I loved the movie 50 First Dates with
Adam Sandler. Sandler plays a guy who
falls for a beautiful woman, but with a
catch: she suffers from short-term memory
loss. Since she can never remember anything,
he has to romance her anew every single day.
The movie has a magical happy
ending: he makes her a videotape
that she watches every morning, to
remind her of who he is, and who
she is, and they live happily ever
after.

But my mother’s quickly fading
memory loss won’t have a happy
ending. Her neshamah shines
through the sometimes-vacant
moments, and her smile lights up
the room when I walk in, but she
isn’t sure why I’m there or who
those nice boys with me are. When
she smiles, I still see my mother as she once
was, a long time ago.

She’s my mother, but she’s now my child,
too. It’s a cruel reversal.

Daily triumphs are small: I get excited
when she can still ask a lucid question or
when we have a two-sentence conversation.
I feel like the mother of a newborn baby: She
walked today! She said banana! She kissed
me! I sometimes feel unconditional love for
her rushing over me like waves, the sweet,
patient love of a mother for a toddler. At
other times, I feel uncontrollable sadness,
like a mother watching her child continually
stumble and fall.

There are some advantages to not having
short-term memory. Fights and grudges
don’t last. You live in the here and
now. I am learning a lot through
this process, and I document the
lessons in the hopes they will be
comforting to me later and helpful
to those who may find themselves
in my position now. I hope I can
carry these lessons from her dementia
with me throughout my
life.

1) There’s no use arguing
about anything – she won’t remember
and it doesn’t bother her.
2) There’s no use being aggravated
because she lost something – she doesn’t
remember having it and she’s not upset that
it’s gone. 3) Slow down: don’t rush in, say
hello, and rush out – time doesn’t mean all
that much, she can’t follow when you speak
quickly, and your stress gives her stress. 4)
Keep it simple. She’s happy with little things
for a very short while: going out for dinner
means more than the actual reason we’re
going out, which she can’t remember. 5)
Keep your expectations reasonable. Don’t do
things that are meaningful to you – do things
that are meaningful to her. 6) Just sitting and
holding hands is fine. 7) Don’t correct her. It
only embarrasses her and aggravates you. 8)
Each day is different, so take it as it comes.
Some will be good and some will be bad. It
is what it is.

Ours is a religion of memory. It’s incumbent
upon the Jew to remember. But what we
pray for is to be remembered: to live in such
a way as to leave a legacy.

To be remembered
is to not disappear. To be remembered
is to be validated. To be remembered is to
be present even when absent. To be remembered
is to be re-membered – to be a member
once again of a community. My mom will be
remembered even if she doesn’t remember.
To remember and to be remembered are
precious gifts – but they’re different gifts.
The first we can’t control. The brain will do
its own thing, regardless of what we want. No
matter how many mementos and snapshots
we paste into scrapbooks and photo albums,
as much as we vow to “never forget,” eventually,
one way or another, we will. In the
words of the Psalmist, “We fly away.”

In 50 First Dates, even love can’t reverse
a brain injury, and it won’t reverse my
mom’s dementia, either. But to be remembered
is altogether possible, and it’s what we
can hope for.

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