Grandpa, Do You Still Know Me?
My question list, addressed to a grandfather who lives with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Have you got a notebook?”
Isn’t that what you said to me?
With our blurry memories, how could either of us remember what you said ten years ago?
But do you know that sometimes, when I’m staring at a chalkboard or doing calculus, I remember?
Do you know I remember from that day everything but our words, and that it’s as though I’m a child again and the walls are yellow?
Weren’t the walls yellow?
Does your memory seem brighter than reality too?
Isn’t it a beautiful memory, the one where I’m leaning my elbows on the honey-colored dining table, the sunlight peeking over my shoulder, and where you’re teaching me how to draw the cross-section of an airplane wing, with its curves and its flaps and the invisible arrows where the air goes?
The years, where did they go?
Where did your mind go?
When — exactly when — did you forget the principles of aerodynamics?
Did you forget?
Do you know I always remember you as a genius, and still think you are one today?
Do you remember teaching me those lessons, or do you simply know that you’ve already decided I’m a genius too?
Do you think it’s better to remember someone, or to know them?
Have you not yet forgotten my visit last month, when I spoke to you in your native tongue?
Is that why you think I’m a childhood friend, or sometimes that we’re back home in Bergen?
When you look out the window and say, “Yes, Mama. We have it good in Norway,” does that mean you know we’re connected in some way?
Why is it that you — having forgotten my name, my face, nearly everything — are the one who understands me best?
How about last week, for example?
How about when I, swallowing up sobs between words and phrases, asked if you knew Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
How is it that you, confused yet not the least bit confused, settled into your smile and said “yes, absolutely”?
Is that conversation one of the few you don’t entirely forget?
If you can’t recognize my photo on the corkboard, yet today you recognize me as a church person — think I’m an old spiritual sister from forty years ago — doesn’t that mean you still know me?
I am a church person, aren’t I?
And here’s another article about dementia…
