Fading in to nothing

-"My mother has been fighting, or rather, against dementia for two years." she sighs. "I don't know what to say to her when I'm on the phone."

She briefly rubs her fingers on her cell phone lying next to her on the couch, as if asking her mother's forgiveness for talking about her with me."

"How about hello? That is always a good start?" I suggest. In response, she raises her eyebrows in boredom.

-"Or I love you..." This time she squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head vehemently.

-"She is talking more and more about her parents." she tries to sound light-hearted, but it comes out rather rushed.

-"Your grandparents?" yes, of course, I think to myself and am ashamed of this silly question.

-"Then they are back in the Alps, then somewhere in Africa, and sometimes they are dead: mysteriously murdered. Killed by bad people." she says dryly as she strokes her cell phone again.

-"I don't know." she sighs sadly and then starts to giggle. "I sound just like her, just now: I don't know, she starts every sentence with that. When I ask her how old she is, she answers: I do not know. twenty-five I think."

-"How old is your mother really?" I ask

-"Eighty-five." she confirms, "Seven years ago she fell off a curb, and shortly afterward I began to notice that she was becoming forgetful and confused, but above all dark."

-"Dark?" I ask.

She closes her eyes again and nods

-"I began to suspect that she was starting to grow demented, and although we don't live far from each other, I did everything I could to visit her as little as possible." she sounds embarrassed. A tear rolls down her cheek and she takes a deep breath.

-"When I visit her now, she does not even realize who I am. She looks at me as if she is trying to place me. Like I've walked out of a dream or nightmare that she cannot put her finger on. If you ask me, she just shuts me out." She starts biting her nails.

-"Please don't do that." I ask, "Why do you think your mother is shutting you out?"

-"I can feel it." She replies irritably. "She looks at me annoyed and then she turns on the TV. I just notice her counting down the minutes until she falls asleep, and when she finally does, she wakes up in the middle of the night. Like my presence alone is a reason for insomnia. She can sense that I'm sleeping on the couch."

-"What does she do when she gets up? Does she do that when you're not there as well?" I want to know.

-"She scares the living hell out of me. She stands in the middle of the room looking at me. When I ask her if she is okay, she points to the door. I thought she wanted to go outside, so I say it is way too cold to go outside. It's freezing at night, you know." she adds the last part hastily as if to apologize that the real reason is that she just does not feel like going for a walk with her mother in the middle of the night.

-"And then?" I try to get her to keep talking. 

-"Then she stands by the window. Creepy! Like a scene from a horror movie. She keeps repeating a few times that there is something outside. Until I get up and walk to the window. She keeps telling me to have a good look because there really is someone there and the worst part is, that she sounds excited about who or whatever is out there.” then she also sounds excited." 

-"What do you do then?" I ask.

-" I help her back into bed, but fifteen minutes later she is standing by that window again." She shakes her head and pushes her hair back:

-"She starts to pick restlessly at my blanket and tells me to get up because we must make a run for it. Someone might come in and see me lying on the couch."

-"Your mother is quite confused and anxious." I point out.

-"She often says things like: I don't know how long I can stay here. Is there a logic behind madness, doctor?" she asks with despair in her voice.

-"Can you talk to other people who are going through the same thing?" I ask, "a support group or something."

-"I don't want to talk with other people." she responds angrily, "I want to understand my mother."

-"You sound like you want to bring her back to her present life." I interrupt her.

-"I want to know where her thoughts are going. What is behind her melancholy and her fear. She panics so often." she continues in the same angry tone.

"I think despair is swirling in her head." I try carefully.

"I want so badly to hold her hand and say I love her, but she doesn't know who I am," she says as tears roll down her face. She starts biting her nails again.

-"And? Do you?" I ask as I gesture to her with my hand to stop biting her nails. She looks at me urgently and questioningly.

-"Love her?" I fill her in.

She plays with the pleats of her skirt for a moment, then whispers:

-"I don't know."

-"Did you ever love her?" I insist. The question makes her uncomfortable.

-"We were not an affectionate family. Love was not communicated to us." she says shyly as if she is afraid, she is revealing some oddity about her family,

-"And this bothers me," she says suddenly with pent-up anger, "she once said, out of the blue: I love you too, and then she started laughing. A painfully sharp laugh." she pauses and then adds:

-"She had such a confused expression on her face. She didn't say that to me."

I decide not to argue with this.

-"Could it be that she was once used to saying those words?" she asks me.

"I can't answer that." I answer, "How did it make you feel to hear your mother utter those words?"

-"It was strange. It would have been nice if she had said that to me. But I highly doubt that." she says with a pout as she shrugs, "Love never poured out of her. She was always very careful with her heart and her feelings."

She stares out the window for a moment, then continues:

-"I tried to, or rather, I tried my best to say that I love her too, but the words didn't come out of my mouth."

I bite my lower lip.

"I want to go home. I only want to go home. Home: wherever that may be." she changes the subject. "Then her voice gets so dark, and she says she feels like shooting herself."

-"How does that make you feel?" I ask again. She shrugs again:

-"The bluntness of it hurts me." With a bored wave, she adds: "I don't know how to react to that. I just feel like crying. Unpassionately letting my tears flow until I run out of them."

-"Why don't you?" I ask genuinely interested.

-"Tears!" she grimaces, "That's taboo with my mom. Always has been. I want to cry to punish her for all the tears I had to swallow."

-"Does your mother mention often that she is toying with the idea of ​​suicide?"

She closes her eyes and makes a face as if I have asked something disgusting.

-"Last week she asked me where that nice man had gone?" she changes the subject again, "I asked her which man because there was no one there except me. Then I asked her what -that- man's name was, and believe it or not, she started laughing again. She said his name was Joseph. Then she asked me my name. I lied that my name was Sofia."

-"Your mother didn't realize you were kidding her?" I ask

-"She said ok, ok. That is all." she replies casually. "I asked her who this Joseph was, but she said that she had forgotten." She gets up and walks to the table to pour herself a glass of water and stares at a picture hanging on the wall for a moment.

" I told her that my name was Linda and that I am her daughter." 

she turned around abruptly, "And do you know what? She said her daughter had been dead for over a year."

I want to say something, but she holds up her hand as a sign to let her finish.

-"When she was seventeen, she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl. Immediately after the birth, my grandparents had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital." She stops and looks at me with tears in my eyes. "The baby was put up for adoption and she never saw her again."

I was eager to ask if they ever tried to find out where the daughter was, but she cuts me and continues:

-"I do not understand why she keeps talking about her parents. I don't remember her ever talking about her parents."

-"Most likely the trigger for that is something she never been got closure on with her parents." I say softly.

-"You can say that." she nods gravely, "She got pregnant when she was seventeen, which turned out to be very embarrassing for my grandparents. Now that I think back on it, all she ever said about her parents is that she was tired of them and one day picked a small suitcase and left.”  

-"Have you ever met your grandparents?" I ask. She shakes her head.

-"I've looked on the internet, but all I could find out was their place of birth and the graveyard they´re buried in." She is going back to the couch:

-"When she talks about her parents, she always talks in the present tense. She complains that they expect or demand too much of her. She insists that she would have been a much better person if she had married." 

she stops and stares at the ceiling as if she could pick an insight out of the air. 

"I think that's why she married my father." she curls her lips down and continues, "Because of an old-fashioned and outdated idea. Not love.”

-"What do you want from her?" I ask.

-"Nothing! I just want her to feel safe. I want her to ask me to come and see her and to be happy about it when I come." she tries her best to be nonchalant about it. "She shuts herself off from me, and I don't know what to do." She sighs wearily.

-"She was never a social person. I don't even remember her ever having any friends."

A smile appears on her lips as if she is going over a private joke:

-"When I was little, I spied on my mother one Easter morning. She was hiding chocolate eggs in the garden. Why can't she remember those things instead of always talking about her parents, who made life so difficult for her? “She bites her nails angrily again.

-"How do you see your mother?" I ask carefully.

-"For what she is!" the anger in her voice cuts across the room. "A squatting old woman with a walking stick, and disheveled white hair." tears begin to run down her cheeks again:

"It will be a moment of grace for me when she takes her last breath." she hides her face behind her hands:

-"So that I can say goodbye to that body that is stuck in a dead-end alley of mental decay."

-"Is there nothing you can take comfort in? Something from before she started to fade?" I push softly.

-"Yes." she sniffles, "I know she's been through a lot: the teenage pregnancy, the baby sent away by her parents..." she wrinkles her nose and continues:

-"Sometimes I worry that all that will linger in my memory of her is some kind of reverse polaroid photo. A photo that will fade instead of developing, until all that remains is a dirty beige stain."

-"You have the power to keep the image in that photo from fading. Can't you hold on to her strength? Maybe your mom needs someone in her last days to hold on to, as well? She no longer possesses the faculties to express that, but can you imagine how lonely she must be?" I try to explain and comfort her.

-"I wish I could hold on to her love." she whispers more to herself than to me.

-"Maybe it´s the same for her. These are her last days, I don't think she has much time left, and therefore neither do you. Can't you find it in your heart to forgive her for being distant and say that it is okay; that you love her now? Now, while it still matters." She interrupts me by suddenly jumping up from the couch:

"You know what, doctor, never mind."

I am struck dumb for a couple of seconds.

"I'm going to tell her now that I love her. Even if she does not know who I am."

-"That's a good idea." I sigh in relief,

-"There is little or nothing that cannot be soothed or healed by the embrace of love. Help her cross over in dignity, while you still can!

-"Yes! Thank you." she smiles.

-" While you still can." I insist, "Because you know, sometimes people who die are much more present in our lives after they've died. Don't let that presence be lacking something you have said to each other ages ago."

-"I should have told her much earlier: mom, I simply love you!"