LOT OF LOVE
I want to underline my appreciation for the Loving, caring words,
reassuring guidance, and homey humor of The Group. I am continuing to leaf
my way through correspondance, and forward any useful information to my
brother and sister on the West Coast [California and Oregon].
I've come to realize that I don't really mind my mother's dementia so much.
At least there is forward momentum in it, which I find far preferable to
the fear and anxiety that come with body symptoms like "internal tremors".
I would hate to see her yanked out of her own world, perhaps a fools
paradise, to be returned to the harsh reality of a frozen, spastic, or
otherwise dysfunctional physical context.
When I had a mobile home in Davis, California I used to have a room mate
every year to defray rent expenses; and they were usually foreign students
in graduate or post-doc status. One room mate was a visiting Chinese
Scholar from mainland China. He had first come to USA to help set up
"internet" [at the time I had no idea what that was!], and was now working
for his sponsoring faculty member and hoping to get his family out of China
[which he did just before Tenamen Square].
Anyway, one of the reasons he chose to live with me is that he figured it
would be an opportunity to improve his english pronunciation by simple
contact with a westerner. What ended up happening instead, ... I learned
to speak "broken-english". It actually works quite well! There's a mental
simplicity that comes from eliminating all those unnecessary "connecting
words". I am readily understood and make friends quickly at Chinese
restaurants. The appropriate mimicking "body postures" become unconscious
and second nature, accompanied by a lot of smiling. "Mirroring", as does
Woody Allen's character "Zelig" seems to evoke spontaneous appreciation.
Where I'm going is that some of this process is bound to be going on with
Mom. We talk on the phone for extended periods of time and say ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING! Names get mixed up. Images take flights of fancy! We join in
and become a little bit of one another.
So that's okay. "Primary Process" as the psychologists say.
As one doctor said to my sister in law, advanced as she is with chronic
Lyme Disease, "Dementia? You're going to Love it!"
Not to minimize or deny the many real tragedys. But then again, Reality
isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I guess I can anticipate some big time flames from this post.
It's all said with Love,
Jonathan
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