An Absent Life (excerpt)

The events of my childhood are a strange and complicated mystery. I don’t mean the type of mystery a person can unravel later in life through therapy, painstakingly identifying antagonists and protagonists and psychoanalyzing past experiences into something that can be celebrated, forgiven or simply accepted. I mean that my memories do not exist in a manageable form.

My childhood comes to me in flashes. Not a moving, continuous reel of history, but a loosely connected series of visual snapshots, random sounds and smells, and a haunting sense of loosing touch. The story of my life dances awkwardly in front of me as though I lived in a world intermittently and unpredictably lit with strobe lighting, still images depicting precise moments but lacking context - often nonsensical, frequently frightening and sometimes supernatural. Imagine the internal narrative of your youth being accented with something similar to the psychedelic transitional sequences in an Austin Powers movie. Groovy baby. It was the 70s after all.

My first actual memory is of browsing in a greeting card store with my mom. I loved the card store. Everything was linear - straight lines up, straight lines sideways, equidistant spaces between. I felt calm when everything had a place and everything stayed still. With just a few customers, all reading silently and walking slowly, it was quiet like the library – another place I loved to go.

As we wandered, there was a slow rhythm to our movements. A reader’s pace. My mother was holding my hand guiding me through the towering aisles filled with graduated rows of rectangular greetings. There was a pause at the end of each row followed by a predictable reverse in direction bringing with it the need to shift me from her left hand to her right so that I would continue to be pulled, as opposed to pushed, down the same aisle. She was careful to bring her right hand around and grasp my alternate hand before releasing the other.

As my mother focused in on the teaser line of a card, she released my hand in order to pick up the card and inspect the conclusion of the sentiment inside. I immediately and instinctively wrapped my arms around her knee maintaining the most vital component of my existence - the essence of life as I knew it - constant physical contact with my mother.

I’m not exactly sure how old I was. Given my mother was 4’10”, the angle of trajectory as I glanced up to her face, with my arm wrapping just above her right knee but my head below her hipline, I can guesstimate my age to be 3 or 4.

Suddenly, the comfort of her leg disappeared. My mother had simply vanished. I was instantly alone, the skin of my arms tingling with the unexpected sensation of cool, empty air. The loss of touch was physically palpable to me. I could, however, still hear her voice even though I’d lost the sight and feel of her. She was shouting my name. My eyes searched the vacant space next to me as the panic in my chest started to burst through my ribcage. Where did she go this time?

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she hissed. She hadn’t vanished, just transported herself further down the aisle without walking. She did that sometimes. I wasn’t sure when I was going to develop this handy, but terrifying, travel skill, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“Why did you stop there? You were following me to the register. Come on. Pay attention.” I popped my thumb in my mouth to stifle my cries and put a vice grip on her trousers.

When I asked my mother if she remembers this incident (I often double-check memories with family members), she replies, “Yes. It was so frustrating to take you places. You would be so quiet and content and then would suddenly erupt into a full state of panic. You acted as though I’d abandoned you or something. I was only 10 feet away and you could still see me.” I may have been able to see her, but I never knew where to look.

In Loving Memory

As the youngest, I was still growing up when my dad developed symptoms of Alzheimer’s, so Alzheimer’s was a larger part of him to me than maybe anyone else in the family. Still, I don’t think any of us sees Alzheimer’s as depressing, and that’s because dad gave us the ability to cope using laughter and create even more funny memories of him every step of the way.

At first, the disease seemed to merely add a little more flavor to his personality. We would be at a restaurant and the server would go over the list of specials. My dad would listen intently throwing in “Oh that sounds wonderful,” or “HMMMMM, MMM, MMM” as the descriptions were being given. Then he would turn to my mom and say, “Do I like Salmon? I do? Great! Then I’ll have the salmon.”

I didn’t know it was possible to take the nicest, most genuine man on the planet and make him even nicer and more endearing. Alzheimer’s gave him the ability to say and do what he truly felt without holding anything back. What made that work so well for Dad was what he truly felt and wanted to say was always kind. One of the best one-liners he ever delivered was when we were leaving a small, owner-run restaurant near my house in California. He had remarked several times how delicious his meal was. “Boy that was great.” As we walked out the front door, my dad turned around, cupped his hands and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Thanks for the great meal!” It was moments like that where he left people with a distinct and happy memory of meeting him.

Not that there weren’t difficult times too.

As an adult – I started to get angry. It didn’t make sense to me that a man who took such meticulous care of his body, a man who truly felt his body was his temple, would live such a healthy life only to be struck with a disease of the brain - a disease that doesn’t care whether or not you ate enough bran or exercised every morning. I have spent years trying to come to terms with what felt to me like a slap in his face. This was not how his life was supposed to turn out.

However, when my sister and I were working on the programs for his funeral service and trying to find the right words to put under one of gorgeous pictures he painted, the words “In Loving Memory” suddenly started to make sense of it for me.

When Paul and I were married 8 years ago, I was often sad because I knew that since my dad had already forgotten who I was, he would never remember being part of our special day.

At our wedding reception, I saw my dad smiling and tapping his feet to the music. I went over and asked him if he was enjoying himself. He said, “Well YES! This is a great party. Who’s getting married?” I said, “I am, dad.” I saw a look cross his face. It was a look I only saw a few times, actually, which is surprising, because that look was a bit of sadness crossed with a fair amount of frustration - as if he realized he had forgotten something important. But in his signature way, he quickly gave me a huge smile and said, “You look beautiful,” and then went on to become the life of the party on the dance floor. So on my wedding day – he gave me such an incredible gift – he gave me a memory. A memory of him dancing energetically to “Superfreak,” which will make me laugh out loud for the rest of my life.

No matter how far his disease progressed, without a doubt he remembered when he was holding one of his grandchildren on his lap – he may not have been able to tell you which one or which one of his children they came from, but that didn’t matter. He always remembered how to love. It was his Loving Memory that told him “this little person is special and belongs with you.”

This is what today makes the paradox of my healthy, vibrant dad and Alzheimer’s an unexpectedly good fit. Perhaps because he took such good care of his body and because his heart was so healthy and strong – his heart had its own memory. His powerful heart took over and helped him express his limitless love for life and everyone in it. And maybe he didn’t need a physical memory as much as the rest of us because he was the memory maker. He made sure everyone he touched walked away with a “loving memory.”

I can picture him in the back of the room now, so thankful to everyone for being part of his life, with his hands cupped shouting – “Thanks for the great memories!”