Mom & Me Four Archive

...but she didn't take much of a nap, so her brain may not have had much of a chance to work according to plan. We had a good evening. I found The Santa Clause 2 running on yet another cable channel this evening, which thrilled Mom, as she remembered having seen the first one earlier today. I spent most of the movie making dinner and handling the evening chores, so I didn't see much of it. From what I saw, I think I prefer the first, but Mom made it clear that she prefers the second. So, later this evening I ordered both movies for our collection. Dinner, was a huge success, although it contained a variety of ingredients she claims not to like; rice, for instance, and peas, highly flavored left overs from last night's dinner. I combined those with chunks of last night's roasted chicken and flavored the mixture with the consomme from the roast. Mom exclaimed a couple of times how good it was. "Did you write this down," she asked, "so you can do this again?" Always a good idea to ask this, when I'm the cook, if I serve something you like.
    We also washed and set her hair, which relaxes her into a talkative mood. As well, I rubbed her legs down early because she was complaining about her back "bothering" her, which is unusual. I find that when I have her lean back and stretch out for a leg rub down, her back unkinks.
    It was during the leg rub down that I began to timidly probe the possibility of surfacing Christmas memories. Absolutely nothing. Except, toward the end of my probe, she chuckled and said, "You know, I remember [name of dead sister] and I questioning Mother about her memories. It was so frustrating for us that she couldn't remember anything. I remember thinking that it seemed impossible that she could have forgotten these things and being sure that I never would. And, well," she grinned her tight, ironic grin and shrugged her shoulders, "you can see how well that plan worked!"
    I was struck by how comfortable she is with her forgetfulness. I also pondered how the episode of her remembering the book throw out indicates that the memories haven't been erased, their paths have changed. It's as though her hard drive has placed them in different directories and the trick to accessing them, since I cannot access her hard drive directly, is to find the proper commands, so to speak, that will display her directories and grant access to both of us. It's funny because I can feel the heft of those memories I know remain stored. I have also fallen into the hole of her thoroughly deleted of memories. Different feeling altogether.
    Reminds me that Mona, on her website The Tangled Neuron, just published a series of unusually interesting articles about dementia as a disease vs. dementia as one of many possible conditions of aging. The link will take you to the first in the series. One of the related issues discussed is whether more effort and money should be spent on discovery and care for those already dementing, over research for "cures". It's an interesting question. Two of the aspects of this issue that have bothered me for some time are:

1. Our preemptive willingness to treat with drugs over person-to-person technique;
2. Our lather to ensure that Ancient Ones remain independent as long as possible.

    It seems to me that these two aspects are related. I don't believe our desire for independence for our Ancient Ones is pure. I believe it is actually a controverted desire for our independence from our elders. I also believe that this is what keeps us hoping for some sort of medical treatment, the application of which requires no more than a reminder to the recipient to apply the treatment. Person-to-person technique requires time, energy, thought and relatedness, four items of which we believe we are in short supply and which we would prefer to divert to areas of our lives which have nothing to do with our elders. I would, in fact, go so far as to say that we are much too quick to jump on the "independence for elders" band wagon; so quick that our leap seems to display a willingness to dismiss our elders as too far gone and not worth our life energy. I think that we grab for the illusory gold rings of long habitual statements made by our elders that they, too, want independence, when, in fact, these statements are vestiges of what they thought, in their middle years, they would prefer, when they discounted their ignorance about what being old would entail. Although we know that there are some elders who not only want but are capable of independence, for the most part, in one or more ways, our elders function better in webs of interdependence, varyingly tightly and loosely woven depending on the individual elder and that elder's functionality at any one time. This shouldn't surprise us. The truth is, we are all like this. Even those of us who identify ourselves as enthusiastic loners do so against societal webs of community. For some reason, though, we consider our own desires for interdependence legitimate, but not those of elders. We probably do this because our world, for the moment, as Dr. Thomas points out [in What Are Old People For?], is geared toward adult interdependence to such a degree that it remains invisible to us. Thus, interdependence with children is suffering, at the moment, to a certain degree. Interdependence with elders is completely dismissed as something to be altogether avoided or relegated to the activity of viewing our jewels, carefully polished for display by someone else. I think it is this prerogative that is directing not only our medical research, but our behavioral and relationship research, as well. We take it as a given that it is desirable to do whatever we can to increase the independence of elders and, failing that, find professionals to take care of them if they fail to meet our need for their independence.
    Ai, yi, yi. What a world we live in. What surprises await us as our boomer generation inexorably increases the ratio of Ancients to Adults and Children. This, I think, is good enough reason for us to make extraordinary efforts to consolidate ourselves with our own parents, so that we will begin to clear our own fog about what it might be like for us to be old, and begin to prepare our children for the possibilities that await us, and them as what I hope will be our Generationally Interdependent Yet to Be Ancient Ones. We must remember that the boomer generation is only the first of what will probably be many future generations who will look forward to a lifespan normally including Ancienthood. Any sins we commit in this regard will, indeed, be passed on to our descendants for payment.
    Anyway, I'm thinking, if there is success to be had in regard to Mom's Christmas memories, I may have some tomorrow. Although the inclement weather to which I've been looking forward is stalling a bit, it promises to settle in late tomorrow afternoon and continue in intensity through Tuesday. I've deliberately planned these as baking days. All baking with be done under my mother's supervision. This is always a super time for camaraderie, and it will be preceded by a full night sleep both days. I'll have the iBook and microphone set up at the table, which will function as our baking surface, ready to be triggered, just in case. No promises, just hopes.