Joy and Dementia

One would never associate joy and Alzheimer's (or any other form of dementia). 

Dementia is cruel.  

Dementia robs you of your memory, your personality, your ability to think or to act.  It's progressive and regressive at the same time.  It rises with you, as you get of bed, and resides with you throughout the day and night.  It clouds your mind, and eats at your brain cells, much like the Pac Man video game from yesteryears.  Without fail and hesitation.  Cruelty and frustration in the harshest form. 

But, it doesn't need to define you.  In fact, in some ways, it can reshape your memories, reworking a memory until it becomes a new story, one that might not bear any resemblance to the original one.  One that helps bring a smile to your face, rather than the grimace associated with the original memory.  Hurt or angry feelings around a painful memory or action might dissipate, removing the pain altogether.  Or any pain or transgressions your may feel today might not be remembered a few hours or a day later.  

Joy could replace fear, could replace anger.  

Dad often remembered his early days much easier than the more recent years, or days.  He could regale tall stories of family and friends, his work within the community, or pranks he and his favorite cousin Karl engaged in.  With a child-like innocence, he would recall with awe the joy he felt, the warmness evident in his eyes and his smile.  The ever-present smile.  A smile that could go missing during the in-between years, when we were young and times were tough.  Yet here it was, a mile-wide.  JOY!

There were hurt feelings in the latter years, some misconstrued by Dad, such as nurses that came to his hospital room, unsmiling and unwilling to even say hello, or friends who stopped visiting, unable perhaps to witness Dad's decline from the dynamic, effervescent and determined man they used to know.  Who needs them, he may have thought. Just for that brief moment.  

Early on in his dementia, he was often upset that he wasn't the one who paid for any purchases, or that he wasn't given a wallet to carry.  Where's my money, my id, he would ask, upset that he couldn't be trusted with either of those personal items that he believed shaped him.  Later on, when he has passed that stage of fighting against a declining brain, wondering just what was in store for him, he used to laugh when at a store or restaurant, wanting to feed a craving, saying out loud, the house will pay for it, there's plenty there.  We would all laugh, glad that his mind was less troubled.

The grimace, however, would return when he spoke of his father, a father that was stern and uncompromising.  A father that berated, rather than consoled or encouraged.  A father whose approvals he sought, yet never gained.  Pain and anger.  Fortunately, a memory that was somewhat forgotten in the latter part of Dad's life.  Replaced by new stories of new found joy, of new found friends, or caring caregivers and volunteers with whom he shared many laughs and jokes.

Near his moment of passing, it was his mother he called out for.  A father's memory left far behind, buried with the pain associated with it.

Joy rather than pain.  Smile, in place of grimace.

Joy and dementia.  Coping.  Managing.  Smiling.  Innocence.

Joy remembered.

Pain forgotten.