knowing me, knowing you

So far my mom knows us. Her closest family and those that consistently show up remain familiar. If someone who was once a dear friend comes around after not keeping in touch, she pretends. She knows that she is supposed to know the person, but if they so cruelly said, “What’s my name?” it is doubtful she could find the word.

Her grandchildren light her up every time, though she could not tell you their ages or grades in school, and she would not be able to line them up and name them off. They are known to her deeply, but called things like, “my boy” or “my girl” or “the nurse” or “your tallest one”.

Yesterday I had been at their home for a while and she began to look out the window at my house next door, watching my big burly husband getting ready to go ice fishing. My middle son came out and my mother saw him through the garage window. She said, “Oh there’s our daughter.” I was standing behind her, confused, until I remembered how often people say my middle boy and I could be twins. Short hair, swept off the forehead the same way, heavy lidded eyes, same face shape, pale skin. And with winter hats on, well, we really could be twins.

Of course the strange part is that my mom had just been engaging with me in her house, and there she was with her back turned claiming to see me next door. We kept quiet. Let it be. We smiled at each other. Shrugged. Until she turned around and I waved. Hi!

“Oh there you are, you’re here, that’s right. Now who was that then?!”

I reminded her that Asher and I look a lot alike and changed the subject so she wouldn’t feel so embarrassed.

Earlier this week, she was with her helper. A helper that comes and gives mom some companionship, road trips and Very Important grocery store outings. She cannot recall her name either, but knows her well, recognizes her always. She calls her “my cohort” and cracks us all up.

Mom’s cohort asked her something about me and she started answering like she was talking about her sister. So her helper said, “Oh no I don’t mean Kay, I mean Heather.” And my mother said, “I don’t have a Heather.”

Alzheimer’s Disease is that cruel, you know? It erases your children, and then it brings them back, and then it erases them again.

I walked in right after this conversation and my mom called me by name. Twice.

I don’t have a Heather.

It did not fully engulf me right away. That came when I told my big burly husband later. Saying it out loud took the wind out of me. But then, it eased. I remembered what I wrote about my mom’s illness not long after she was diagnosed and that is that she will forget us, we know that. But that she will also not forget us. A soul doesn’t forget. Her mind is not her essence. She’s got all of us, with or without our given names wrapped up inside her and when she loses us from her mind, stares vacantly at us, confused, we can remember that.

She will always have a Heather. Perhaps I will be buried somewhere too deep while I stand there unrecognizable. But I know I’ll be there. We will all be there within her like the colors of an abstract painting of the soul. Messy and kind of weird, but magical and strangely beautiful, resonating. She will have that. She will always have that.