Redirecting the demented elderly’s attention, strolling down that Memory Lane once more, translated…
Ever since mom started showing signs of Alzheimer’s, a lot of things became like water, flow to wherever we don’t know. What we’d just told her, she’d forgotten about, in a blink of an eye, she’d started repeatedly, asking the same questions again, and again, and kept ranting on things in the past. What I’d feared the most was hearing her say, “I’d worked hard all my life”, “I’m illiterate, such pity!”, then, with that added, “It was so not worth it!”, to finish off, way back when, we’d, tried to console with her, but, after she’d heard us out, she’d, looked grim, then, lowered her head, not said another word; later on, we’d, stopped, trying, to change her beliefs, and allowed her to become like a voice recorder, just, played and replayed, her own complaints again, and again.
And, I’d thumbed across a book on Alzheimer’s that mentioned how we can show those who have Alzheimer’s some photographs, and, we’d taken out that already dusty album, mom held it in her hands, asked curiously, “Who is this? Where, is this?”, and, I’d, explained to her, picture, by picture, “This, was from when you went to my eldest sister’s graduation”, “This was where my wedding banquet was held, you look so beautiful, in this traditional style Chinese dress!”, “Oh, and this one, was from your trip with dead, and my eldest brother to Japan, don’t this sea of flowers look pretty?”, mom squinted her eyes, looked at it close, patted the people in the photo, like she’d, fallen, into a tunnel of time, she’d started smiling, stated, “I too, am blessed!”
a woman, strolling down memory lane with her own mother, not my photograph…
On this mildly colder, gloomy winter afternoon, her words, her smiles, became like that sunlight, shone through the living room windows, and, illuminated the house. I knew, that as she got up to go to the bathrooms, these words would probably, get flushed down into the toilet too, but, to mom, who’s now, living, from moment to moment, at this moment in time, she is, happy, and that, is more than satisfying for me.
So, instead of getting mad at her mother, she’d, effectively, redirected her mother’s attention onto something else, in this case, a photo album, and, by flipping through the pages, the writer’s mother was, reexperiencing the lost moments of her youthful years, and, it gives her (the mother) great pleasures in the moment, and, as for what happens next, it wasn’t, important anymore!
Life, the Obstacle Course 