I'm glad the old smoking buddies (Mom and Jane) don't go outside to smoke anymore. They both have the Patch. But they would be outside in a heartbeat if they could coerce me into taking them out. Weather does not stop these old addicts. If they could get outside on their own, they would. The only thing stopping them is the knowledge they wouldn't be able to get back in.It's a smoker's COPD dilemma: What do you do when the thing you love more than anything else in the world will kill you if you do it? If Mom could put a sentence together, she would say that she's going to die anyway so she might as well enjoy the time she has left. I can't fault the logic. I understand addiction. I don't want to be her enabler but neither do I want to deprive her of one of her few remaining pleasures. If Make-a-Wish called me to tell me my mother's last wish is to smoke a pack on her deathbed, I guess I would comply. My only excuse is she's not in her right mind. Actually, if she were in her right mind, whatever that is, she would say, get out of my way, let me die my way.
Tonight we walked over to Jane's room to say hello.
These days she leaves her door open to help her cope with claustrophobia and anxiety. Mom and I stood in the doorway. “Hi, how are you doing?” I asked. Jane came over, looking thinner than ever in her cutoff gray sweatpants and tiny velour jacket. Her hair was in pin curls. I noticed she had on footwear I hadn't seen before: fuzzy lavender ballet slippers with bows on top. She said she was doing much better. No more oxygen tank burbling in the corner.
“I sure miss going outside,” she said. “I can hardly stand it. I'm going to do something about it.”
“You know smoking again could kill you,” I said.
“I've about had it. I talked to all my doctors,” she said. “Two or three puffs, they said would be okay.”
I noticed my mother looking interested. I turned to her. “You had one cigarette and it almost killed you,” I said.
“Really?” She sounded skeptical. She didn't remember gasping on the couch. I shrugged. I know when a battle can't be won.
“Would you like to walk down to check your mailbox?” I asked Jane.
“Yeah, let's do that,” Mom said. Jane found her mailbox key.
“Should I close my door?” she frowned, hovering in the hallway. She worries that people (staff) go inside when she's not there and look through her stuff. Mom was already shuffling down the hall with her walker. Jane decided to leave the door open. We strolled past the front door, down the hall, past Mom's room to the mailboxes. “Here we are!”
Jane opened her box: two letters from Kaiser. I opened Mom's box: empty.
We walked Jane back to her room. Mom decided it was time to walk me down the long hall to the back door to see me off. We passed her room, where M.A.S.H. was blaring. We sang When the Saints go Marching In as we walked, a pleasant alternative to our usual She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain. By the back door, I kissed her forehead. We exchanged peace signs. I told her I loved her. She smiled. I went outside in the frigid air and got into my car. She waved the peace sign at me through the window. I turned on the overhead courtesy light so she could see me return the peace sign. I started the car, pulled forward, and waved my hand out the window. She waved back. Over her shoulder I could see a fuzzy moving image on the big screen TV that the old folks use to play wii bowling. I waved back and drove away down the hill.
I begin to see that memory occurs on a continuum, and people's capacity and willingness to remember varies. Just because she can't answer when I ask her what she had for dinner doesn't mean she doesn't remember. If I prompt her by saying, “Remember when you had potato chips for dinner?” she'll say yes with some certainty. Potato chips for dinner is a memorable meal.
Who cares whether we remember what we had for dinner? I can remember what I had for dinner because I have the same damn dinner everyday. Mom's menu varies and she's fed frequently in large amounts. Who could possibly keep track? And why should it matter?
Dementia strips out the nonessentials. Everything we don't need sloughs off like dead skin, leaving us with just the core, the white hot essence, burning bright. Memories of events, people, places, meals . . . it's all just mental clutter. It's not that there is no longer room for those memories. It's more like we don't need them anymore and the goal for the next adventure is to travel light, as light as we can, as light as light.
