Remembered Rainbows

You stand there, staring out the window at the sunshine, the flowers, the birds, a look of confusion on your face. You turn. “It’s supposed to rain today,” you say. “The garden needs some rain. That’s what it said on the weather last night. Rain, it said. I remember.”

On the notice board, it says ‘Today is Tuesday 5^th May. It’s going to be sunny today’. Another note says ‘Have you taken your tablets? Tick the box when you have.’ There’s no tick. Increasingly there is no tick. Tablets are found and the taking of them supervised. The box is ticked. You pull a face, say they taste bad, and you cannot remember why you need to take them. But eventually you take them, I am the doctor today after all, not your son.  Breakfast is brought to take away the taste; cereal followed by toast and marmalade. You like marmalade. It’s sweet and makes you smile, but it has to be put away otherwise you’d sit and eat the full jar.

You are left looking out the window, picking at the collar of your blouse much as you pick at your memory, wondering where the long-ago promised rain is. Later Karen will come to take you to day-care, if she can find you, if you haven’t wandered off, if you haven’t gone back to bed.

Evening, and you’re wearing a different top. It’s back to front, but you don’t seem to notice, so it’s left like that. Better to leave you with a back to front top rather than cause upset by putting it the right way round for an evening spent alone.

You’ve lost your hearing aid. Again. It’s fished out of the waste bin where you threw it because it’s broken, and because you’re too vain to wear it anyway. The irony that back to front tops are fine but hearing aids are unfashionable is not lost. Batteries are replaced and the hearing aid switched on.

As you eat your dinner, you watch the news, the weather and bemoan the fact that it will be sunny tomorrow. “The garden needs some rain”, you say. The notice board is changed to read ‘Today is Wednesday 6^th May. It’s going to be sunny today’ in readiness for the morning. The ticked box is unticked in readiness as well, though it is increasingly doubtful you’ll tick it yourself. You’re left having a conversation with the presenters on a TV show. They look directly at you from inside the TV, so to not reply when they ask a question would be rude. Wouldn’t it?

‘Today is Sunday 21^st June. Today it will start fine, rain later’. The box is not ticked. You’re standing at the window, looking for the rain that isn’t there. “It’s supposed to rain today,” you say. “Why isn’t it raining? The garden needs some rain. On the weather last night, they said it would rain. I remember.” And although it did say rain last night, that was not until this afternoon. The forecast rain you remember was forecast years ago. The forecast rain you remember fell years ago if it fell at all.

It’s washing day today and the hearing aid is found in the laundry basket. While the washing machine chugs away, the batteries in the hearing aid are checked and other things are put in order. There’s a faint smell in the house, and the raw chicken you bought last week is found under the grill, still in its wrapper. It is quietly disposed of; you’d hate the thought of wasted food and wouldn’t allow it if you knew. Plates are taken from the bread bin and put back in the cupboard, while soap is taken from the fridge and put in the bathroom.

When the rain comes, you look at it and say, “I thought it was supposed to be sunny today?”

‘Today is Tuesday 25^th August. Today it will hot’. “It’s supposed to rain today,” you say. “That’s what they said on the weather last night.” No box has been ticked. No box is ever ticked these days. Recently you’ve been found in bed in the middle of the day, you’ve been found wandering the streets in the middle of the night. This week decisions need to be made as to your future. Decisions that will be hard. We both need to work to pay the bills, so with us you’d still be alone a lot of the time in a place you will not remember, regardless of how many times you have visited in the past.

Your grandson is scared of you. He doesn’t understand what is happening to you. I have your darker colour, whereas he is tall, blond, skinny. He looks like his grandfather, that husband of yours, the one who abandoned you all those years ago, leaving you to bring up your child alone, the one you said you’d take a knife to if he ever showed up again. So your grandson is rightly afraid of you because he doesn’t know if you remember him as your grandson or a faithless husband.

‘Today is Wednesday 2^nd September. Today it will warm and cloudy’. Last night someone tried to break down your front door, leaving you confused. You don’t even question the weather today; you don’t understand what is going on. The police, alerted by neighbours, arrange for someone to come and fix the door, and the social worker rings round to try and find you a place to stay. I will stay with you until this can be sorted. That’s fine. Today you see me as your brother, so you think I’ve come for a visit, and you spend the evening chattering away, not listening for any reply.

‘Today is Friday 4^th September. Today it will be a mixture of sunshine and showers’. It’s been raining, but today, you’re going on holiday. At least that’s what we tell you. A bag is packed with a few essentials; more will be labelled with your name and brought later. It’s a nice hotel, you’re told, where everything will be done for you. There will be others to talk to, things to do, your very own room.

This will be your last time in this house. The future looks uncertain, where you will lose more and more of the things that make you who you are. We will watch as you forget us one by one, as you live further and further in the past in a time before we existed.

You allow yourself to be led outside the back door to see that the sun has come out. You pause, look up, a smile spreading across your face. You don’t look back at your house, the place that has been your home through good times and bad for the past 35 years, but you smile at the memory of a rainbow from a special moment a long time ago known only to you.