Quarter Leg

How dementia progressed, very slowly, in this elderly woman’s life, translated…

She’d, looked and me, thoughtful, asked, “How come you get to come back, and my mother can’t?  I looked at her, suddenly understood, she’d, mistaken me as, her father……and if her father can return from “the other world”, her mother should also be able to, come back to see her again.  Although her mother’s been dead for over twenty years now………

After my father passed, the four of us decided, to move my eighty-two-year-old elderly mother in with me, in Taipei.

My parents’ home in the countryside was a four-story mansion, the topmost floor was the shrine of all of our ancestors, other than the plates of my ancestors, my father died no more than a couple of months ago, based off of the traditions, his photo was, hung next to the plates of my ancestors.  My mother wasn’t willing to let him go, she’d climbed up from the first floor to the fourth, to offer the incense.  Sometimes, she’d, lit a stick of incense, stood in front of the shrine, talked to my father who’s, already, passed on, as the incense was burned out, she’s still speaking to him.  After she stood for too long, her knee cap was injured, once she’d accidentally fallen from the stairs, broke her hip, and after the surgeries, she couldn’t, get up and down the stairs as much as she liked to.

There’s the elevators available in my home in Taipei, and as the eldest son, we carry the responsibilities, of looking after our own parents when they’re elderly.  In order to look after my father who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s toward the end, for the nearly ten years, she’d, suffered a whole lot, but she kept it all in.  Several times, she’d worried it might affect me, who worked in Taipei, she’d not told me, until it was, too serious, she’d told.  Her body kept everything locked in, and, the progressive illnesses came to her, and, her mind started, deteriorating away too.  Being able to, spend my mother’s final years with her, so she can finally, feel more at ease in her elderly years, and my children will have the company of their grandmother too, it’s, a good thing.

It’s just, that it was, hardest, for me, to adapt to this.

Since I left home to go to college, I’d lived for over thirty years in Taipei, married and had my children, gotten used to be the head of the house.  And although we’d all go home for the New Year’s, but it was only, for a few short days, like a vacation of sorts.  And now, we’re all, living together, I’d already, gotten accustomed to the roles of a husband and a father, and now, I’d, needed to, readapt myself, to the role of a son also.

Every day when I get out, my mother was already awake, sitting in the living room, looking at me, “it’s cold outside, are you, wearing enough clothes?”  “are you not cold, you should go and put on a sweater!”  My father had been used to putting on a suit every morn, she saw me put my suit on, she’d chimed on, “You look good, very handsome!”

Sometimes, I’d put on my jumpsuit to go out for my run, she’d commented, “it’s quite late, why are you going out again?  It’s dangerous out at night.  You are, living in Taipei!”

Sometimes, I’d had a little too much to drink in my business conferences, she’d said to me, “Child, you’re so old, and you’re, getting so drunk!”

I was, originally, the HEAD of the household, and now, she’d, beaten me back down.  Turns out, in her belief, I was, still that “young” child of hers.

My wife would make fun, that I’m already a grandfather, and I’d, gotten turned, into a child again.

My youngest son is in middle school, and eats a lot of food, the big bowls of rice, the big piece of chicken, the fish too, he was like, an abyss.  As mom watched him eat, she’d, turned to me and asked, “Why don’t you eat more?  Look, Dong-Dong ate a lot, you need to eat more too.”  Then, she fell back into her old habits, kept putting the food into my bowl, worried that all the food gets, eaten by my son.

We are a family, eating at home, and, we’re, still putting food into one another’s bowls, how did we, become such strangers?  At first, I’d let her done as she wished to, and smiled and just eaten what she put into my bowl.  But later, I’d, had enough, and, prevented her from doing it.  But it didn’t work, perhaps, it’s due to the deterioration of her mind, it’s as if, she was, taken over by OCD, kept putting the food into other people’s bowls.

Once, I bought two fried quarter legs for my kids as midnight snacks.  Seeing how they enjoyed it, I was, glad too.  But my mother became, displeased.  She started nagging, “Why do you save money on you, buying the food for other people and not yourself?”

“The kids will grow after they had the food, while I just, gain weight!”

She said angrily, “You don’t take care of yourself, just look out for everybody else!”

I thought, she believed, that I was her son, and that, Dong-Dong was, someone else’s child?  So, she was, in a battle, with someone else’s child then?  But, Dong-Dong is my son!

Once, I had a business meeting, came home a bit late, found there to be a quarter leg on the supper table, my wife told me, at supper, mom specifically saved it for you, she wouldn’t let Dong-Dong have it.  I’m thrilled, told her, “I just had a business meal, how can I possibly fit more food into my stomach!”

“Call it, the compassions of an elderly mother then!”, my wife smiled.

I’d recalled when I was young, the family of forty, fifty of us, live all together, inside an old style mansion, growing up in the farming villages, we were, very poor, we’d normally only eaten what we’d grown, and only on the New Year’s, were we able to, kill the chickens, to offer to the ancestors.  My younger brother and I were born on the third of the New Year, I’d recalled, how cold it was in the winters, my mother saved the quarter leg from the chicken from the offerings on New Year’s Eve, waited until the afternoon of the third, she’d, served it up, to my younger brother and I.  Before the birthday cakes were, introduced, that was, the only birthday present she could, afford to, give to us.

In her mind, quarter leg, I suppose, is how she showed her love to us.

A little over three years later, her sense of judgment started, getting away from her, but her memories grew more and more lucid by the day.

One morn, as I was getting out, she’d suddenly lifted up her head said to me, “You’d not finished your construction work from yesterday, you’re, finishing it up today, aren’t you?”  it came as a surprise to me, that she’d, mistaken me, as my father now, as he’d always, gone away, to install the stoves.

In the evening, she looked at me, said thoughtfully, “You can come back from time to time, why can’t my mother too?”  I gazed at her, suddenly, it’d, dawned on me, that she’d, mistaken me as my father.  Perhaps, I resembled my father in her memories, and if my father can, return from “the other world”, her mother naturally should be able to too.  Although, her mother’s been dead, over twenty years already!

My mother grows frailer by the day.  One day, she will feel that she’s, very weak, and suddenly, started telling me of how when she’d fallen ill as a child, her father was only a poor farmer, couldn’t buy the medicines, and can only weave up the baskets, and catch the eels, to cook them with the herbal medicines to help her get better.

“My daddy, he loved me the best.  There was a thin film of frost on the leaves early in the morning, he’d gone to the creeks, to catch the eels, and cooked them for me.”  As my mother told, it’s, as if, she was, returned to her childhood.  My aunt came to visit her, brought a box of chicken essence, she’d placed it beside her, but, didn’t drink it.  I thought it was a habit she got from the days of working on the plantations.  Until one day, in the morn, she’d told me she wanted to go back to Nantun to visit her mother, that she’d not seen her mom in such a long time, then, she’d pointed to the chicken essence, “We can take this back to her, to see if she can have some!”

As we placed on her medications, her dementia became, irreversible.  Her cognition is, deteriorating away, bit by bit, by bit, but, before she forgets completely, she’d still remembered, to bring the health foods back to her own mother.  If one day, when I became too old, and lost my memories, don’t know if I’ll still remember, how my own mother saved a quarter leg for me on my birthday or not.

And so, this is the slow progression of dementia, the ones you loved, are getting away from you by the day, and, each and every day, they will remember, less and less, until one day, your loved ones forget everything completely, but those earliest memories of their childhood remained untouched…