The other day, I received the following reply to one of my tweets. “It is interesting how some with Alzheimer’s do not know your name or relationship but know who you are and that you are their special person. I have no doubt that Kate knows you are her special person.”
I, too, have no doubt that I am Kate’s “special person.” That is one of many things that I didn’t anticipate nor understand when we started this journey together. I won’t say that I fully understand now, but I do recognize that “knowing” someone is much more complex than I originally thought.
From the beginning, I knew that Kate would forget me, but I didn’t think about it in any detail. It was just something I envisioned as one of the saddest moments I might encounter.
I remember the day I discovered that my mother didn’t “know” me. She and I were talking while my dad was in another room. She had mentioned not having any family. I said, “What about your husband?” and she said, “I don’t have a husband.” I was stunned. I hadn’t noticed anything in her behavior that would suggest she didn’t know him. I asked about her sons. She said, “I don’t have any sons.” That blow was softened by her answer to my previous question, but it still caught me off guard.
More specifically, I was surprised because she almost always related to me so warmly and repeated something of a mantra. “You’re such a nice boy. You always were.” I didn’t understand how this could be. It made me wonder how long she had not known me as her son. How had I missed that?
I understand a little better now. At least, my experience with Kate has made this seem perfectly normal (that is, for someone with dementia). In addition, my learning about the difference between rational and intuitive thought or abilities has been powerful in facilitating my understanding. Knowing my name and relationship requires rational abilities, and she has lost those. Developing a comfort level and feeling heavily dependent on me requires something different, her intuitive abilities. Those abilities allow her to sense whether she likes me, trusts me, and depends on me. It is those abilities that will last a long time. For some PWD, they last forever.
Like many people, I thought forgetting me would just occur one day and that she would never remember me again. I quickly discovered memory for names, places, etc. comes and goes. At first, the loss of rational memory occurs infrequently but gradually increases. During the past few weeks, Kate has had greater difficulty with her memory of many everyday things like fork, napkin, and Dr. Pepper. In the past few days, she has had times when she couldn’t remember anything about her parents. In addition, her memory of my name and relationship has been even harder for her to recall than in the past; however, she is still comfortable with me though curious about who I am.
Something new has occurred in the past few months. It reminds me of something similar to an alter ego. We had a good example yesterday morning. I noticed on the video cam that Kate was about to get up. When I reached her, she seemed wide awake, quite unlike most mornings. She greeted me enthusiastically and was very talkative. I decided to take advantage of that. Instead of proceeding to get her up, I sat down on the bed beside her and talked with her. We had a beautiful 15-20-minute conversation. I was taken aback, however, when twice she mentioned her husband. Both of them were positive references. Until hearing this, I would have sworn she remembered both my name and our relationship.
As I suggested earlier, this is not the first conversation in which this has happened. I expect it will happen again. Perhaps I will be less surprised next time; however, the point I want to make is that she had two separate memories of me. One was the person with whom she was conversing, someone she recognized and with whom she was very comfortable and liked. The other was her husband who was not present but was also someone with whom she had a similar comfort level. The difference was only the distinction in our “official” relationship. He was her husband, and I was her “friend” (?).
I should add that she has often thinks of me as her father. That first happened a couple of years ago. It almost always begins with her asking, “Are you my daddy?” I usually answer with something like, “Would you like that?” or “I’m happy to be your daddy.” Then she smiles and calls me “Daddy.” After that it seems totally forgotten until the next time.
Until I was part of this conversation and several others like it, I never imagined this happening. It is one of many things that can seem strange or impossible, but with dementia almost anything is possible. It certainly adds another layer of complexity to the concept of “knowing” someone. Knowing me comes and goes: nevertheless, in some ways, it never disappears.
