THE CURIOSITY OF AFFECTION Alzheimer’s disease has few graces and many cruelties. Its capacity to take apart the human mind, like a knife reducing a loaf of bread to crumbs, is attention getting. If it hurts to watch your best friend become unable to tell time, or identify where she lives, imagine being in her shoes. To lose pieces of your personal identity one day at a time must be terribly frightening. But what if we were to contemplate the graces of memory loss as much as its cruelties? I have plenty of friends who live bound-up lives – lives tied down by past regrets or wrapped up in unrealistic hopes for the future. They are so bound-up that they miss living in the present. My own life has acquaintance with this missing of the present. One thing that individuals with Alzheimer’s understand very well is living in the present moment. I sat with a man in the memory unit of his residence yesterday. He shares an inner spirit of gratitude every time I see him. “I am so grateful for today,” he said with generosity written all over the wrinkles in his smile. “Just think of the blessing this is.” As he repeated that lovely statement four separate times during my visit, it was clear to me that he couldn’t remember what went through his mind and out of his mouth five minutes earlier. But, he was living in the present like few of us do very well. Roberta’s mother died earlier this week at the age of 91. Although mother and daughter shared a precious life of togetherness, Alzheimer’s certainly changed the shape of that togetherness in the last five years. I asked Roberta what sort of exchanges she was able to enjoy with her mom, given that mother no longer recognized her in recent seasons. Roberta happily noted one line that her mother spoke not long ago. “I don’t know who you are,” mother said to Roberta one day, “but you look like somebody I could really love.” Isn’t that a great line, full of endearing affection? Imagine how different this world would be if we approached other people whom we do not know well, or recognize at all, with that kind of hope. It’s really the curiosity of affection. I sometimes think of how we tolerate people we don’t know. I don’t want prejudice to figure into my perception of certain others, so I tolerate them. But tolerance is such a lukewarm term. It’s devoid of positive feelings and behaviors. There is a great big difference between not hating another person and actually delighting in them, or even loving them. Roberta’s mother had no idea who she was talking to on that one day when she probed the possibility of love with her daughter. But in her own unknowing way, she was expressing what could orient every relationship we fashion with others whom we meet – “I don’t know who you are, but you look like somebody I could really love.” __________________________ Copyright © 2014 Peter W. Marty. All rights reserved. Any use of this material must be attributed to Peter W. Marty. To reproduce this material in published format, please contact Peter.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 18:40:04 +0000
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