Ten years from now, when I’ve lost some — all? — of my marbles, will I still be loveable?
I’m getting older and older, and soon I will be getting crankier and crankier. My mother was pretty ornery toward the end of her life. How about me? Is it written in my DNA that I too will fade into dementia one day?
If so, will I still be loveable when I’ve lost the last of my marbles? Will I even be me?
I watched my mother — her mind — slip away bit by bit as she approached her nineties. She died at 93, and toward the end, her thoughts would chase absurdities like, “Who was my first husband?”
My mother, my real mother, would never ask such a question. From the time she was sixteen years old, my mother had one true love — my father. The two married just as she was turning 21 and they remained married till the day he died, in her arms. She wanted me to know that — that he died in her arms. He was hers to the end.
But now I had to wonder. Who was this woman? Who was this frail, wrinkled, cantankerous person crumpled up in a chair that, years ago, she had so optimistically reupholstered and needlepointed with soft green leaves and pink roses, a chair that had accompanied her here, to this tiny, shared space in a memory care facility? Was this person still my mother? Or was she someone, something else?
On some days, when I showed up for a visit, my mother would look up from what she was doing and smile at me in recognition and delight. Once — it was October — I caught her laughing and kissing the Halloween pumpkin she was busily carving at a table alongside a half dozen other folks also finishing out their lives carving pumpkins in this place.
At other times, when I showed up for a visit, my mother was vague. Large chunks of her life were no longer available to her. They were gone.
Does that mean my mother was gone? That we are nothing more than the neurons and synapses that make up our brain, and when that brain is gone, so are we? Is there anything left of us to be loved? Do we have souls?
On holidays, my friend Nancy invites me along when she visits her husband Steve at the memory care unit where he’s lived for several years now. Steve was Jon’s dear friend from childhood. And he’s been my dear friend for decades.
We sit at a table in the dining room, the three of us, Nancy and I on either side of Steve. It’s the Fourth of July and Steve’s birthday. Red white and blue beads and bracelets are sprinkled across the table. Barbecue awaits at the buffet. Attendants come and go, checking on Steve, who, yes, can be cantankerous at times.
On this day, I can’t tell whether Steve knows that it’s a holiday and his birthday or whether he even knows me. A couple of years ago, when I visited him here, he could still manage a few words.
As I got ready to leave on that day, I said, “I’ll be back, Steve. I’ll visit you again.”
“Visits are key,” he said.
That’s what he said to me, and I remember it. And so, every few months, when I get an invitation from Nancy for a holiday visit, I say yes. I show up.
And I’m here again for this Fourth of July brunch, for the barbecue, the pie, for Nancy and for Steve’s birthday. When I arrive I press my hand softly against my friend’s forearm and say, “Hi, Steve. It’s me. Your friend. Barbara.”
Steve doesn’t say anything. Does he recognize me today? I don’t know. But I know who he is. When I look at him — the tilt of his head, the characteristic squint of the eye — I see Steve. Steve is still here. And I still love him. I notice that.
On Thursday, after I finished writing this post I went to the gym. While I was there, Nancy phoned me to say that Steve had died that morning. He was 85, the same age Jon would be today.
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