Alzeimer's

 

Unknown

 Alzeimer's

Chairs move by themselves, and books.

Grandchildren visit, stand

new and nameless, their faces' puzzles

missing pieces. She's like a fish

in deep ocean, its body made of light.

She floats through rooms, through

my eyes, an old woman bereft

of chronicle, the parable of her life.

And though she's almost a child

there's still blood between us:

I passed through her to arrive.

So I protect her from knives,

stairs, from the street that calls

as rivers do, a summons to walk away,

to follow. And dress her,

demonstrate how buttons work,

when she sometimes looks up

and says my name, the sound arriving

like the trill of a bird so rare

it's rumored no longer to exist.

 

Bob Hicok

 

My mother too. 

It's her focus - one    thing    at    a    time. 

And her time travelling. Sometimes a child, waiting for her father to take her home, other times locked in the present, reading aloud as if tasting every word singly. I wonder as I listen if space on the page for her is different - each word an island, her eyes swimming the distance between.

She shifts from knowing us to wondering at the audacity of these strangers who think they can tell her what to do and where to go. Who are we? What place is this where people put things in front of you and expect you to to eat them when they say so? Who are you to brush her hair or cut her nails - who asked you? Why are you so pushy? Why do you want all these things?

And her plate becomes a map. Colours and textures, like forests or deserts, she picks at them gingerly, not sure of the consequences. Does this belong here? Should she move it to the West? Will there be war if mixed, this mountain and that mass? How should she manage this chaos?

Meantime, we watch her like a mystery. She has made us detectives. Which way is the wind blowing?  Where and who is she now? Am I a friend or an enemy? Every moment she changes and she changes us. We struggle to keep up or slow down. Now repeating the moment over and over (she reads the same sentence 20 times - will she move to the next one this time?), now sliding into different worlds (Where's the dog? We have no dog, but she looks for it. Did we forget to feed it?), or ascribing vile motives to our innocent attempts to help. It shocks us. What will she make of us next?

Is it sad? Yes. She is not accessible in the old ways. I wish I could ask my own dear mother - "Do you remember..?" or question her about details of our lives together that I didn't know I would need to know. It's strange, to have her and not have her. 

And no. 

Something draws me in.

Loving her isn't hard, just bewildering.

It's loving without knowing, without understanding - a blind love.

Like a seed-sprout pushing up through the black,

reaching for an unseen sun.