I love the movie 50 First Dates so much that I watched it twice. The vivacious Lucy played by Drew Barrymore suffers short-term memory loss – a condition I assumed was made up to give this romantic comedy its name and sweet appeal. Her love interest played by Adam Sandler has to woo her every day. Eventually, he makes a video about Lucy’s past and their relationship. Lucy watches it every morning to be reminded of her love life with a man that never gives up.
However, this plot was no longer amusing to me. It was no longer amusing because I wonder if I should start recording my Facetime conversations with my mother.
“Mom, do you know I’ve been talking to you on Facetime at the same time every day?” I asked.
A few seconds of silence passed. “Really? I thought I just talk to you when I think of you,” my mother replied, awkwardly, “Oh, yeah, a little, I think I know.”
She has learned to pretend.
She doesn’t remember seeing a neuropsychiatrist. She says she is still sharp, not like my grandmother’s cousin that was lost on her way home and cried like a child. She tells me this story every day. “I still know my way home. I am not like your grandmother’s cousin.”
It has been about two years since we noticed a rapid deterioration of my mother’s memory. Her last attempt to fly to New York for a visit ended up with forfeited airfare and countless phone calls asking what time she would get picked up to go to the airport. She was the one that didn’t want to come at the last minute. Her anxiety level shot up over this trip that she was too overwhelmed to come.
But she quickly forgot she had made that decision.
I went to visit her earlier this year. When I called her from New York after we landed, she thought we were still in Houston. She asked what time we’d be back at her place. “Mom, we took a family picture outside your house before our flight earlier today. You hugged the kids and we said good-bye.”
Stories like this have become commonplace nowadays.
The difficult thing is that she is resisting our help. She thinks we are there to take away her independence. She would tear up and accuse us of cruelty. She’d repeat herself with the same story trying to convince us she’s fine. “I can still find my house. I am not like your grandmother’s cousin.”
Seeing how hard my brother tries to help her get a handle on her medication, I do my part to explain to her what has been going on.
Your son took you to see a neuropsychiatrist and you were prescribed new medication to slow down your memory loss.
You have been overdosing on some medication because you don’t remember you’ve taken them.
We’ve been working with you every day to help you with your new medication.
Sometimes she’d listen with wide-eyed wonder as if this is a great discovery of new facts. Sometimes she’d cut me off and go back to her story about my grandmother’s cousin. Sometimes she’d deny everything and accuse us of lying.
And sometimes I would raise my voice. Actually, I usually end up raising my voice at her out of frustration.
You can imagine the powerful words that came from my brother who visits her every day. “Be patient. She can’t remember.”
Be patient. She can’t remember.
And I was able to calm down.
This is what I have come to believe as a Christian. We will not be shaken by trials that fall within God’s plan. God gives us supernatural strength to face it and to tackle it, and He lifts us up when we grow weary.
I didn’t call my mother often when she was well. I’d think twice before picking up her calls. Now it is my daily ritual to facetime her. I call it our own Reality TV – mostly about my brother counting her pills. My mother would bask in such attention and call herself blessed…only for a few hours before she freaks out again.
And the next day, we’d do the same and give her the same narrative.
Your son took you to see a neuropsychiatrist and you were prescribed new medication to slow down your memory loss.
You have been overdosing on some medication because you don’t remember you’ve taken them.
We’ve been working with you every day to help you with your new medication.
And we watch her oscillate frightfully between one reality and the other.
Somehow I haven’t had a chance to think about what this all means…down the road.
My mother single-handedly moved my brother and me from Taiwan to the U.S. 35 years ago. She was incredibly capable and sharp. Never worked a day in her life, she enrolled in a job training program in Chinatown to learn to process checks. She then got a job as a clerk in an American bank. She put my brother and me through high school and private colleges on her meager salary of $13,000 a year.
We do owe her a great debt.
I shall find a story to share with her each day, telling her the difference she has made and what a great woman of faith she has been. Even though she probably won’t remember any of it, she’ll hear it again and again until it sinks into her consciousness…and into her spirit.