TATER

As long as my faulty memory can reckon, certain members of my family have been concerned with getting Alzheimer’s and dementia.  This is especially true for my mother, who lost her own mother to Alzheimer’s, and went through the whole process of decline, followed by disability, estrangement, institutional living, death and diagnosis.  The disease has been a storm cloud waiting to break open over all of our heads, and any little failure of recall is met with a sense of resignation, inevitability, doubt, suspicion and fear of the too well known.

Ironically, the man who tried to put my mom’s nagging fears into perspective;  who tried to sooth her fears, was the first of us to fall to this horrid illness.  My father is doing the steady decline now, and is in the process of divorcing himself from his life.  Every time I visit, he attempts to give me of himself.  Last week some tools, the visit before, fishing gear.  He is saying goodbye while he is still able to remember the action, while he still knows and loves us. 

While this process is heartbreaking by its very nature, it has also been extremely life affirming.  My family has grown close again, there has been so much growth in our relationships in areas of amends, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, acceptance, and especially in unconditional love.  We have even come to accept that their are humorous sides to this tragedy, and have allowed ourselves to express it, in the face of all the accompanying solemnity.  Over father’s day, we were able to chuckle over the fact that every time dad entered the room, he was excited all over again by his gifts!  He realized after looking at them over and over again, that he was forgetting, and he was the one to crack the joke about the gifts that keep on giving to an Alzheimer’s patient.  Soon enough, he won’t be well enough to crack wise, but for now it is a godsend.

I am currently where my mom was 20 years ago, freaking out at every memory lapse, knowing beyond doubt that I am doomed.  This illness is on both sides of the genetic tree.  Like her, I start to think of writing stuff down and making lists.   Mnemonic devices are practiced, to stave off the inevitable decline.  I remember my mother doing the same thing, sometimes with disastrous results that left us giggling.

The most funny example that springs to mind occurred one summer while we were camping at our summer lake property in the wilds of Northern Minnesota.

My parent’s friends the Marbakers (douche bag christianist mother fuckers) used to have us down to their cabin area for dinner quite often over the course of a summer.  We both owned property on the same island on Lake Vermillian.  Every time new family members arrived or before they were scheduled to depart, we would have a communal fish fry or some such dinner, to greet them, or to say our farewells.  On one such occasion, Chief douche bag Bill Marbaker (on vacation from his nazi homeland of Colorado Springs) had arrived with his new fiancee, Terrace.  We were all introduced, and I could just see my mom’s brain spinning.

“I can’t forget this girls name!” she was saying to herself.

“Lets see...what mnemonic device can I use to help me remember it.”

My mom was frequently mortified when she forgot a name, said something unintentionally inappropriate, or mispronounced a foreign sounding word (think Bri-JEET Bar-DOT, instead of Bar-DOE).  She was certain not to embarrass herself by forgetting this girl’s name.

Cut to a few nights later up at our camp.

“Hi y’all!  It’s so nice you could make it up here for supper!”  my mom exclaimed.  Always the hostess with the mostest, my mom made sure everyone was acknowledged, and then asked them what they would like to drink.

“Bill, would you like a beer or glass of wine?” she asked.

“How about you, Porch?”

SILENCE.

“Porch, honey?  What would you like to drink?”

(By this time I am giggling uncontrollably)

“It’s TERRACE.  I’m not thirsty at the moment.” she snapped in reply.

I watched my mom’s face go from relaxed southern charm, to beet red, flustered, mortification.  I am now howling with laughter and can’t get a breath in.  We all knew which device she picked to remember this bitches’ name, and it wasn’t Deck, or Veranda.

There are many more stories like that which tickle me to death, and I know I am doomed to the same embarrassing fate.  I hope I will be able to laugh at myself just a bit, and accept what ever is meant to be.