This is another post in a series, about a woman named Amara. Every Friday I will post another segment in this story.
“Hello? Mother is that you? Are you okay?” Amara was startled to awaken from her memories, with her phone receiver in her hand, and Joy’s concerned voice coming through it.
“Uh, yes dear, it is me. I am just fine, sorry to worry you.” Amara responded, still whirling from the thoughts of the past. Some days that is the only place she really wanted to be, in the dreams of the past. It was safe there, it was comforting there, and she always knew what would happen next. She always knew that there, in her memories of the past, she was who she really was, with no strange occurrences of being in places that she didn’t know, or forgetting chunks of time, or sad looks from her family, as though they too did not know her anymore.
“Mother, did you need something?” Joy asked, wondering why her mother seemed to be responding to her on the telephone as though she had called her mother, instead of the other way around.
“Oh, uh no dear. What are you up to this evening?”
“Well Joe is still away, until the weekend, and the girls are working on homework in their bedrooms.”
“And you, my dear, what are you up to this evening?”
“Just having a cup of tea while I … ,” Joy paused a moment, “while I think about the day.”
Okay, now I have an opening to ask about her day, and maybe that will help me to remember what my day held, Amara thought hopefully. “And what did you do today Joy?”
There was a long pause on Joy’s end of the phone. Amara had heard her daughter inhale significantly when her words reached Joy’s ears. Amara knew that whatever she had forgotten about today, had involved Joy, and she should not be forgetting it.
“Mother, we went to your appointment with Dr. Faw, don’t you remember that?” There was that familiar edge to Joy’s voice, an edge of anger and disappointment and … pain.
“Oh, of course I remember,” Amara lied, “I just meant since you got home.”
Joy’s voice faded from Amara’s ears. Amara knew that Joy was still speaking, and that she was speaking to her, but she could not focus on her voice. The questions in Amara’s mind were so powerfully strong that she could no longer hear outside of her own mind.
Now Amara was very confused, who was Dr. Faw? And why did Amara have an appointment with him? And why could she not remember going to a doctor’s appointment? What was happening to her memory?
There was a time when she had a problem with her memory in the past too. It was back when Jacob was sick. When Joy was spending more and more time with her grandparents, when her hard working husband was pondering that maybe he ought to get a second job to pay for the medical bills. It seemed as though she could not keep her thoughts straight. There were days, back then, when she would awaken in the morning and not know what day it was, or if her daughter had slept the night at home, or if there was a doctor appointment or treatment for Jacob that day. There were days when she would have fallen asleep in the chair in Jacob’s hospital room, when she would awaken and not know the time of day, or when she had last fallen asleep in her husbands arms, or kissed the sweet face of her daughter.
Those days of memory loss were really nothing compared with the memory losses that Amara was facing these days. Now she would awaken in the morning, and have no memory of the day prior, or she would arrive at an appointment …
An appointment! I remember now, about my appointment. I was with Joy at the office of Dr. Faw, and he was asking questions about my forgetfulness. Amara was feeling more confident, and great relief that she was remembering something. The details of that day were still foggy for her, but she was getting glimpses of that day. She remembered that after she was examined, the doctor met with she and Joy at his desk, in his office. He had asked about memory loss in her parents. He had said that there were indicators … “now what were there indicators of?”
“Mom?” Joy’s voice broke through Amara’s concentration on her memories. “Mom? Indicators of what?”
Amara realized then that she had been daydreaming again. Oh, why was she having so many problems with her mind, her memory, her concentration?
“Oh Joy, I am so sorry, honey. I was just thinking about the appointment with Dr. Faw. He said something about my memory, and forgetfulness and that there were indicators of something, but I just cannot remember what there were indicators of.” Amara was almost riveting with the excitement of putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
The other end of the phone was quiet, too quiet.
“Joy? Joy are you still there?” Amara asked, feeling concerned with Joy’s silent lack of response.
“Mother … mother do you not remember anything that the doctor said about possible reasons for your forgetfulness?” Joy was cautious, and more … tender than Amara ever remembered hearing from her before.
“No dear. What did he say?”
More silence. Amara’s heart felt somewhere between not beating at all and feeling like it would pound right out of her chest. She needed Joy to answer.
“Please tell me, dear. I feel like a child waiting for Christmas.” Amara tried to lighten the heaviness of the moment.
“Mom …”
Amara had not heard Joy call her Mom since … since those years of Jacob’s illness.
“Mom, Dr. Faw said that all of the indicators would lead him to think that … ” Joy sighed, not a tired sigh, so much as a sigh of regret. Whatever she was about to tell her mother, she was telling with regret. “… to think that you are n the middle stages of … of Alzheimer’s disease.”
itsawonderfilledlife 
[…] Unfading – Part 6 […]