I Remember | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: I Remember | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
08/10/23
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The pony-tailed doll she clutched under her arm was topsy-turvey, but she didn’t notice. As she approached me, she clasped her hands anxiously and asked, “Have you seen Mom and Dad?”

“No, not today.”

I settled her onto the soft-cushioned sofa and patted her hand. Reassure and redirect, I’d found, was the best advice. It was true; I hadn’t seen her mom and dad today. My grandparents passed away over three decades ago. Telling my mother that her parents were dead would be cruel and futile. Not only would she relive the sorrow and loss unnecessarily, but she would forget almost immediately and ask all over again.

Mom had resided with me and my family for years until her declining condition forced us to make the heartbreaking decision to move her into a monitored facility. She eventually adjusted to the change and didn’t seem to hold a grudge against me.

Yet guilt stabbed me whenever well-meaning people suggested what they thought could have been done. If we truly cared, they implied, we would find a way to keep her at home. As if we could change an impossible situation. As though my older siblings and I had taken this decision lightly. Faced with Mom’s unpredictable and often bizarre behavior, my siblings were no more up to the task than I was. We could no longer assure her safety. I’d never been one to subscribe to the notion that it takes a village to raise a child, yet it was a different story with an adult who daily grew more child-like.

She was relaxed now, hugging the upside-down doll to her chest and studying my face. With her thoughts focused today on her parents, she was confusing me with her sister. Her eyes drifted to her surroundings, taking in the soothing paintings on the pastel walls as if seeing them for the first time. Sitting opposite her, I began to hum the tune of Jesus Loves Me. I smiled to see her moving her hands to the music.

Her once strong hands had planted gardens, canned vegetables, kneaded bread, and bounced babies. When her brain was still healthy, her hands could crochet intricate doilies without a pattern. In my earliest memories, I see her hands, red and chapped, as she wrestled the white bedsheets onto the clothesline on frigid winter days. And in the summertime, that hand stretched out, the forefinger extended. I’d grab her finger in my tiny fist as we strolled together down the lane.

Her finger continued to sway as I sang: “Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” There was no need to ask God for the thousandth time, “Why?” Why had he allowed this horrendous disease to chop away pieces of her bit by bit? I never got an answer, but I learned to accept the reality.

“Jesus loves us!” I told her. “Isn’t that nice?”

“Yes,” she replied softly. Then she lost interest and wandered off.

Mom became compliant once she adjusted to her life in the nursing home. She was seldom argumentative or mean, as many patients can be. Her caretakers grew fond of her and gave her so many baby dolls that her bed overflowed with them. She spent hours a day restlessly roaming the corridors. Once I watched as she stopped outside one of the glass-fronted offices. She tapped timidly on the glass wall until she had the nurse’s attention. Mom smiled sweetly, waved, then blew the woman a kiss. I’d never felt so proud.

I was blessed, and I knew it. Although Alzheimer’s disease robbed my mother in many ways, it couldn’t destroy the love in her heart. Growing up, my siblings and I always knew we were the top priority in Mom’s life. We never had to question whether or not she loved us. Even now, when she struggled to remember who I was, I knew she still loved me. If she thought I was her sister, that was okay with me; I knew she loved her sister, too.

My mom’s human frailty didn’t diminish her love. I remember that Jesus loves us. I trust that better days are coming soon.

***

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 (NKJV)

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