itsawonderfilledlife

 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.”

Unfading – Part 7

Unfading – Part 1

Read Full Post »

 This is another post in a series, about a woman named Amara. Every Friday I will post another segment in this story.

Joy was startled out of her childhood memories by the ringing of her phone.

“Three rings and she has not picked up yet” Amara questioned no one but the air around her.

“Hello,” was the voice of her daughter. Oh, how soothing that voice of confidence was to Amara’s ears. It helped to erase the frustration and anxiety she was feeling due to her forgetfulness. There was no voice on the face of this earth that could communicate so much to Amara, with only one word … hello. It could communicate annoyance, sadness, happiness, weariness or fear. Although Amara was feeling a soothing relief from hearing Joy’s voice, she was also concerned, because what the tone of Joy’s voice was communicating was a level of weariness that Amara had never heard come from Joy.

She was named Joy because that is what she brought to my life, Amara reminisced. Amara’s firstborn was a boy, David. Although Amara loved him at first sight, she had secretly wanted to have a baby girl. Jacob was a most healthy newborn, who was never ill once as an infant or toddler, or even as a preschooler. He was easy in every way.

For over six years Amara had hoped that she would have a daughter. She had become pregnant six times in as many years, but never a baby in her arms. Finally, on Jacob’s first birthday she discovered she was pregnant … again. But this time, nine months late, she gave birth to the joy of her life, wrapped in pink … and whaling like a banshee. She whaled that way, every day (and seemed like every hour) for almost two years straight. Amara was convinced that God had gotten so tired of the constant begging she had done  and he had thought that if she really wanted a baby girl, she would have one, but she would have to earn this blessing.

And Amara did just that. She earned the right to say that she had a daughter. And as loud as Joy would cry, Amara would relax. There was not one time when Amara lost her patience with her wee whaler. There was not one time when Amara did not attend to Joy’s demanding cries. There was not one time that Amara did not look on her daughter with love and delight. Joy was born with the full attention of her mother … until Jacob got sick …

After he started to get ill, Amara was forced to remember that she had a son as well. There were doctors appointments, and blood tests, and treatments, and prescriptions, and hospital stays, and bills. Amara had been so thankful for the help of her nearby parents. They filled in with Joy, while Amara was tending her son.

Her parents had taken Joy on adventures and vacations. They had taught her how to bake a pie and grow vegetables. They played games with her, and even took her to school on her first day of kindergarten, when Joy had to take Jacob to a specialist appointment in another city on that same day. It nearly broke Amara’s heart that she and Joy were apart so much, but she knew that Joy would be loved and cared for and doted on, by her parents, just as she would have done (and just as she had so wanted to do).

Unfortunately, the years of Amara caring for Jacob, and of Joy being cared for by her grandparents, left a gulf in the relationship that Amara had once had with her daughter, and Joy was never again in her life, in want of her mother. Amara was left wondering why God had forced her to choose between her dying son, and her beautiful daughter. In the end she gained the life of her son, but lost her relationship with Joy. And nothing she tried could ever get it back.

“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.

Unfading – Part 6

Unfading – Part 1

Read Full Post »