Hope for a Cool Pillow. Margaret Overton

Each decade we add meaning and every achievement adds purpose. Loss brings perspective of a different sort. And as we age, we think about our legacies. I tell my stories in order to make myself understood and to understand the world around me. Stories seem intrinsic to understanding our heritage; how else do we make sense of history and our place within it? My father believed in the power of metaphor; he told metaphorical stories. My mother’s stories were more linear. They both would have agreed with McAdams, however; suffering made them the people they became.

      ~

      “It’s not really the body of Christ,” Dad whispered as we made our way to the Communion rail one Sunday morning during third grade. “It’s a wafer. Just think of it as a symbol. Probably made somewhere in New Jersey.”

      Three

      I’ve never been to Beijing but they say on bad days the smog can be suffocating, even cause you to lose your bearings. I think of dementia that way, like living in Beijing, not understanding the language or the symbols, where nothing is familiar and the very air you breathe leaves you senseless. During Mom’s last few years, I often felt it myself. Overwhelmed I guess. Or in sympathy with her condition.

      One day after work I knocked on Mom’s door then let myself into the condo with my key. I planned to visit her briefly, then drive downtown for an appointment with my therapist. I needed therapy because I suffered from cognitive dissonance.iv Or at least that was the diagnosis I’d given myself. His diagnosis might have been somewhat different.

      Perhaps I didn’t really need psychotherapy; perhaps I just liked having someone to talk to. Which seemed mostly consistent with a diagnosis of cognitive dissonance. Regardless, my therapist provided a constant, non-crazy person to relate to without having to worry that my problems would upset him. Or if he got upset, it was okay because I paid him. Usually, though, I tried not to upset him.

      For the past several years, I had read about cognitive dispositions to respond or CDRs, which are forms of bias in medical reasoning and decision-making that can lead to wrong diagnoses. It’s a fascinating field of research that seems like it should extend broadly into many disparate areas, well outside of medicine. I knew I’d made some bad decisions over the years even though they seemed responsible, maybe even brilliant at the time. I assumed the same was true not only for other people but for institutions as well. So I’d chosen a bright, highly recommended therapist in the hopes that he might help me sift through my expert rationalizations and move beyond them.

      On this visit to my mother’s, she sat in her favorite seat beneath a large picture window, in a blue upholstered chair that rocked ever so slightly, every which way. It was summertime. She had the A/C off and the temperature hovered around seventy-eight degrees. She wore jeans and a flannel shirt. Her gray hair still had a nice wave.

      “How you doing, Mom?” I yelled at her.

      “Hanging in there,” she said with a half-smile. That was her answer to every inquiry about her wellbeing. Hanging in there. Usually she prefaced the answer with a long “Ooh,” which sounded melodic, resigned, and vaguely upbeat all at once. “And how are you, Margaret?”

      “I’m fine.” I had to yell, because she couldn’t hear much with or without the hearing-aids anymore. But when I heard her say my name I felt that a crisis had been averted, which meant an important piece of her mind remained intact. For the moment, anyway. “I just came from work,” I said.

      “Oh, you came from work?" Mom’s habit of repeating my statement with a question had become increasingly familiar as her mastery of the present diminished. She tried to hide her short-term memory loss. The dementia had occurred over years though it was hard to be exact. Whose memory did that speak to? I thought back and wondered what constituted normal aging and what did not. When had this begun, exactly? Dementia seemed viral, definitely contagious. I forgot things all the time. Could I blame my mother? Sometimes I forgot to take Kleenex and wear sunscreen on my bike rides. I often forgot cilantro for the corn and mango salad I made umpteen times each summer. The signs of dementia are subtle until one knocks you flat. We had just begun having the retirement facility’s nurse visit daily to check on Mom. The nurse argued with me about everything. She wanted to lock up Mom’s medications in a suitcase. Mom threw a fit when she heard about it. I knew she’d pick the lock. I had to negotiate with both of them. We agreed to a suitcase, but kept it open. Like that made any sense.

      I walked over to Mom and kissed her cheek. Age had shrunk her, bent her spine, thickened her, stiffened her. It had spared her beauty, however. Her skin still felt soft; her face held few lines. I reached over her head and flipped on the air conditioning.

      “I did come from work,” I said. “What’s going on with you?"

      “Oh, I’m not feeling too well today, honey." I put a hand to her head and didn’t feel a fever. She looked pale but then she hadn’t spent time in the sun in over three years.

      Not feeling too well could denote any number of things. It usually signaled bowel issues. One of the problems with her memory loss was that she forgot what she should eat, what she shouldn’t eat, when she’d eaten, and what hunger or fullness felt like. So dietary indiscretion was the norm. And she refused to wear Depends. Or she didn’t remember needing them. She could be surprisingly selective about what she forgot.

      “I have to use the bathroom,” she said in a rush. She pushed herself out of her chair. I helped her walk there, less than ten steps away. She didn’t make it to the toilet.

      I suppose the good news is that I eventually arrived at my therapist on time and did not have to think hard to find something to talk about that day. And I can deal with it—the role reversal, I mean. I have cleaned my share of everything, can handle all manner of human fluids and waste. We are simple, common flesh.

      The bad news is that after inserting every afflicted item of clothing and bath linen into the washer, I found a sponge and began to bleach the bathroom. I realized that this explosion had precedent. The evidence was old and dried and hard, but present. On the floor and on the walls. In every nook and cranny. I found poop that had splattered above eye level. I’m fairly tall. I tried to remember what principles of physics they’d taught us back in college that might apply. I’d barely passed physics, but still. Perhaps the four laws of thermodynamics pertained; perhaps those were the laws I needed to remember. Could entropy account for this? I found poop that had splashed so hard as to make two, possibly three ninety-degree turns. What were the physics of a splash? I tossed the sponge in favor of a scrub brush. All along I thought I should have paid more attention to electricity, specifically resistors. A little knowledge of electricity seems useful in life—if you want to install dimmer switches, overhead fans, change out light fixtures. You definitely want to know about fuses—I’d learned that one the hard way. But as it turned out I knew even less about physics than I’d ever suspected.

      Mom rested in her chair. I felt like a janitor with post-traumatic stress disorder. She told me I was her angel. Did angels have trouble juggling conflicting thoughts and emotions? Did they obsess over the mechanics of their decision-making? I wanted to take a shower and go lie down in a womb somewhere. I wanted never to grow old. I wanted to have someone love me enough to never let it happen. But that someone didn’t exist. Not for me, not for her. And I loved her a lot.

      She kissed me twice. I hugged her hard and tried not to let her see me cry. She laid her head back and rested again. I thanked God that the memory of it would be gone within minutes. It would have never happened. With someone else to clean for her, the incident would leave her mind sooner than if she’d had to clean up after herself. I thought about my sister Bonnie who frequently took Mom out to restaurants and had similar experiences in public. Bonnie is a better woman than I.

      After washing the bathroom and then myself, I made certain that Mom was comfortable and had instructions for her evening meal. I had no doubt she would promptly forget what I told her, so I wrote it down. Usually she found my instructions several days later and called, asking what I had meant by ‘Bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast’. I kissed her again and sped downtown to see my therapist. He told me a horror story about his own elderly parents. They had