By Dixie Ann Black (DAB)
In the same breath I add, “Mom, please pick up your fork and eat.”
My granddaughter is visiting again. It’s the irreverent sweetness of youth, innocence and endless energy bound into one small human being. Meanwhile, her great grandmother is from the distant era when it was believed that children should be ‘seen and not heard’. Even in, or maybe especially because of, the pull of dementia, she is boundaries, judgement, sameness.
I am caught in the No Man’s land between the two.
Inaction by its very nature disapproves of action. Action by its nature challenges or disrespects inaction. Mom often glowers at her great grandchild as she shows off her latest gymnastics move. Meanwhile, her stillness is an unconscious offering of space that her grandchild takes over without pause.
Only my mother’s eyes move, watching the child with a scowl. Nothing on my granddaughter is still.
One is inertia, entrenchment, ‘stuckness’. The other is nonstop energy almost to the point of mania.
One, I am trying to pull into even the smallest actions of life; the other, I’m trying to catch up with.
During breakfast, I choose between the hurricane and the mountain and sit next to my entrenched mother.
“Chew the bite of food in your mouth, Mom.” I go a step further, challenging the silence and unnatural stillness, “Mom, please respond. Do you want more eggs? How about a yes or a no?” Still nothing, so I add, “Can you nod or shake your head, please?”
But suddenly my attention is diverted. The hurricane is closing in…Continue reading on Medium.com at: https://dixieannblack.medium.com/irresistible-force-paradox-my-moms-alzheimer-s-a2382be8955
