Mixing Memories

Today my mother confused me with her sister.  She was talking about events that happened long before I was born, or even before she was married.  I knew she was talking about her sister, since I had heard her tell the story before, but this time she was insistent that I was the one who had gotten the dates mixed up.

After a bit of explaining and convincing, Mom realized her error.  She was thoroughly embarrassed. Placing her hands over her face she joked fearing that she was loosing her mind. While this isnt the first time she had mixed up dates and events, it was the first that she mixed me up with someone else and kept insisting that it was me and not her who was mistaken.   

My grandmother, who lived with us till she died, had fallen into a kind of dementia in her last years.  She was convinced that my Uncle, her son who had spent his entire life with her, was a Nazi trying to kill her.  She refused to take her medications and had become obsessive over her bowel movements.  Forgetting she had gone to the bathroom earlier in the day, she would lock herself in the toilet, refusing to come out until she had moved her bowels.

I wasnt around that much during that time, but I was there enough to see the frustration and anger my uncle would go through trying to take care of his mother.  In my confrontations with my Mom I have often told her that Im not my uncle, that I dont intend to spend my days frustrated and angry with her.  Mom understands Im afraid that shes going to turn into my grandmother.  Dementia runs in our family, this loss of memory, of getting time, place and people all mixed up.  Im afraid it will happen to Mom, and naturally Im terrified of it happening to me.

Taking care of my mother is a kind of peek into the future of what may lie ahead for me.  I need for her to be well, because I need to be able to hang on to the hope that when I reach that age I’m going to be ok too.  Now that my body is succumbing to the ills that plague my family, I grow fearful that I may succumb to the ills that plagues the mind as well.