Skip to main content

What happens when the mind goes...missing?

It was my father's birthday. And thiruvonam day as well. I called to wish him. "Happy birthday Acha", I said.

"Same to you," he replied. Birthdays don't mean anything to him any more. Well, nothing much else, either.

He cares about getting his meals on time, but doesn't remember if he's eaten. He's always hungry. He wants my mother around all the time, to look after him, make his meals for him etc. He doesn't care when she falls ill. It doesn't register, you see.

My father has dementia. The part of his brain that remembers people, places, dates and occasions, is slowly getting eroded. He's old, 83 this year, but still spry. Yet he is not the person he used to be. In some ways, that is good. As a child, I remember him as extremely short-tempered. He used to shout often, at my mother, mostly. He's reduced her to tears many many times.  And he used to drink, more and more as I grew to adulthood. So no, I don't have too many happy memories of my father.

My mother is now 70. She looks after him uncomplainingly. For instance, he doesn't remember to clean himself after going to the toilet. So, she has to stay alert, to make sure he is clean. And this is the woman who used to head the English department at Calicut's best college!

A helper comes to bathe my father, twice a week. But on days the man doesn't visit, my mother has to get my father to have a bath. Earlier, that used to be fraught with tension--my dad would abuse her verbally, and occasionally, give her a punch or two. Now he is more manageable, goes quietly to bathe.

Still, I cannot imagine what it is like to live her life. And I know I cannot do what she does. She is the most courageous person I know. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wasteland

Something happened over the past two days. Our next door neighbours, or rather one particular family (like all metrizens in this cramped city, we live within literally, touching distance of the others in our neighbourhood), have decided to demolish their home. Fine, so what, you ask. They see how valuable land now is. Who can blame them? But along with their home, they have also decided to kill off the two trees -- a mango tree and a coconut tree -- in their compound. I used to look at those trees from my kitchen window. The mango tree, in particular, was a welcome sight. Bunches of ripe green fruit used to hang heavily from it. Looking at it, I'd think of my home in Kerala -- of the time when I was a little girl in a white petticoat helping my father pluck mangoes as they slowly changed from parrot green to a golden reddish-yellow-orange shade. That was our annual summer ritual, you see. My father plucked mangoes using a long stick with a hook or a 'kokka' (in my collo...

Morning scenes

The wind blustery Skies grey blue A light so muted Birds are quiet too We walkers go Sidestepping Couple-dancing No touching Looking or meeting Glances…Oh no!   Masks dangling From chins Below noses Hanging from one ear Or sometimes Fitting so properly Covering everything So no one can see Or know What we’re really like.   Runners running Soundlessly Iron determination Seeping through So much so   That dogs being walked Know they cannot Wag tails Or even Bark a greeting.   Two men Creating content One breaking into Hair flipping, body popping Dance Faithful friend filming In fits and starts As a security guard Sips his chai Utterly bemused.

A meltdown

Some days ago, I had what you might call, a meltdown. I went from anger to intense anguish in moments. I worked myself up into a frenzy. I wanted to lash out at my family. Hurl words that would wound and scar. I wanted to hurt myself.. Physically harm my own self or something/someone else. I wanted to break things,something... Anything would do, I felt, at that moment. Just to cope with the heaving emotions inside. Just so I could make sense of what I was feeling. So, I shouted at my loved ones. At my son for something he did or didn't do. At my husband for slights real and imagined. For angry words we have exchanged over the years. For everything we have ever done to each other. Then, I shut myself up in a room Immersed myself in all that was and is torn and tormented inside And I cried my heart out. I ended up with a migraine that day. But later, when I calmed down, I felt better. But more than that, I found that my family still loves me. My young son s...