I’m still here.  I’m still the same old me way, way down inside myself.  Don’t forget that I’m still here. My soul is strong and always present.

I get flashes of understanding. I see the concern written all over your face and sometimes it makes sense for a moment before it vanishes.  You try to hide that look from me but you can’t.  It’s imprinted deep within your eyes even when you are smiling.  You are worried for me and you are sad.  You know I’m disappearing slowly in front of you.  You know that it won’t be long before the only thing left of me will be a Cheshire-cat like smile floating thinly in the air above you.

I’m confused. Then, for a moment, everything comes back into focus. It’s as if I’ve been woken with a splash of cold water to my face, and I quickly try to make sense of it all.  You are different now too I notice. You don’t speak to me like you used to.  You don’t ask for my advice anymore or share your secrets.  I begin to wonder what is wrong with you but then I understand.  It hits me like a punch to the gut. It’s me. I’m not myself anymore; I’ve started to fade away.

I’m losing myself within my own mind and there is nothing I can do to stop it. My thoughts jumble together and so many things just don’t line up anymore.   I will start a conversation with someone.  Begin to tell them a story I think they will find interesting and then, half way through the conversation, I realize by the look on their face that they are embarrassed, that what I’ve said hasn’t made sense.  I have to think fast.  I have to pull the conversation back on track.  Let them think that perhaps they just heard me wrong.  I can pull it off sometimes but it’s getting harder and harder now. I’m fading away.

I’ve driven this road thousands and thousands of times.  I drive this road to get groceries, go visit friends, go to the dentist, go for ice cream, go to the building supply, go for coffee…I don’t know where I’m going anymore.  I know I’ve driven this road thousands of times before but how the hell do I get home from here? I can’t let anyone know I’m lost.  Think damn it!

I’m putting my blood pressure pills into the days-of-the-week pill compartments. I see a pile of pills on the table.  I take them all.  That’s what I was supposed to do right? Why is everyone so upset?  I did the right thing didn’t I? My head hurts and I feel a little nauseous.

My life has been full of laughter, some tears, great joy; you name it, the full gamut. I’ve lived a wonderful life and learned so much along the way but now it’s fading away.  I’m fading away.

* NOTE: The above is a fictitious story.  It’s just me imagining what it would be like to be entering the early stages of dementia.  It’s not me…yet.

July 22, 2011

She wasn’t sure what made her touch it that evening, maybe the fabric of her pajamas tickled her skin, maybe it was instinct. She brushed her fingers over the side of her breast and felt it immediately.  It was wrong.  Everything about it was wrong.

Her first reaction was to pull her hand away.  She clenched and unclenched her fists. This can’t be right. She felt it again.  Her stomach knotted.  It was big. They always ask you to describe how big you think it is compared to various nuts.  Nuts of all things! Is it the size of an almond, a peanut…?  This was a walnut. Definitely a walnut. “What the hell is a walnut doing inside my breast?” she thought.

She couldn’t hide this discovery from him.  He happened to have been watching her when she first felt it.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know… I…I feel something weird.”

“Let me feel.”

She guided his fingers to the spot. The gesture was unnecessary.  He could have found it easily on his own.

“Hmm.” He frowned. She was searching his face for reassurance and he knew it so he quickly softened his eyes and smiled at her.

“Probably just another cyst. Since you’ve lost a little weight it’s probably just easier to feel a cyst when you get one now.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

She didn’t look convinced though and he pulled her towards him and wrapped his arms around her.

“It’s time to take your own advice,” he said, “you are always telling everyone else that there is no sense worrying about things when there may be nothing at all to worry about. Don’t go there until you really have something to worry about. Put it right out of your mind.”

But she couldn’t put it out of her mind.  She cuddled up to him in the pitch black of their bedroom and allowed her mind to go there.  Her mother had survived breast cancer.  Maybe it was her turn to battle the demon.  She could feel tears threatening to spill onto his chest but she willed them away.  She didn’t want him to know how scared she was because then he would be scared and she really needed him to believe it was all going to be fine, and then convince her of it too.

They laid wide eyed in the dark and allowed their imaginations to take them through various scenarios, each one scaring them both wider and wider awake.

The next morning she was up early and made herself busy around the house.  She caught herself checking her watch every five minutes until finally she knew the office would be open.  She called her doctor and made an appointment. Step one.

Aug 26, 2011

I think four is the perfect age.  You are still innocent, full of energy, life is simple and of course you believe in magic.  I watched a four year old playing recently and I allowed myself the luxury of slipping into her world for a few moments…

It was hot.  Especially hot on the playground full of white, dry, dusty sand but the two black tire swings looked like fun.  The tire swings were each cleverly cut out to resemble horses. She jumped on the nearest one and started swinging as high as she could go.  She was hoping to catch a cool breeze but the air that pushed the hair off her face was still warm.  A bigger boy approached, he looked like he might be in grade one.  He wore glasses and looked smart.

“Mind if I ride?” he asked.

Weird, what kind of kid talks like that, she wondered and frowned at him. She didn’t say anything, just watched him climb up on the other horse. She didn’t like boys much and she definitely did not want to play with this one.  After a silent moment she allowed the swing to slow down and then she jumped, leaving her tire horse rearing from side to side. The weird boy was forgotten before she hit the ground.

She liked how her dress floated all around her for the brief second that she was airborne.  Her feet sank in the sand a little.  She liked feeling the hot sand seep in through slats in her sandals and settle around her toes.  It was fun to flick the sand ahead of her while she walked. She was looking down at her feet until she reached the edge of the playground.  She was so hot.

“MEGAN!” her mom was calling.

The second she looked up, it caught her eye.  A sprinkler!  It was on the grass just a few feet past the playground.  The sprinkler was on a long metal spike that stuck in the ground and its sprayer was exactly her height.  She ran to it while her mother’s calls got more and more frantic.

“Stay OUT of the water! DO NOT GET YOUR DRESS WET!”

She reached the sprinkler in seconds and put her hands around the top of it, spraying water through her fingers so it shot out at her in every direction. It felt wonderful.  Her mother stayed at a safe, dry distance and continued screeching at her to get away from the sprinkler.  She blocked it all out. She dropped her hands and let the water splash and mist all over her.  She looked down and watched droplets stream down the wet strands of her hair.  It dripped down her arms and legs and washed the sand out of her sandals. It tickled. It was perfect.

A moment later she skipped over to her mother, smiling, still enjoying the cool water on her skin.  Her mother grabbed her hand and continued lecturing her while pulling her away.

As she passed by me, she looked up and we caught eyes.  I smiled at her.  My eyes told her – Good for you! Enjoy the simple pleasures life offers you. Seize those moments whenever you can. Run through every sprinkler.

She smiled back at me and her eyes replied – Oh, I plan on it… but why don’t you anymore?

We were both only ten years old, but already she had a deep understanding of human emotion.  She must have caught the pain in my eyes or maybe she saw me look away too quickly when they held hands.  Whatever it was, she understood how I felt. Perhaps she understood so well because she had felt the same way.  The fact is she knew I was hurt that the boy I had a crush on passed me by in favour of another and that all the cute boys we knew were pretty much ignoring me.  She saw it and she understood my insecurity.

We all used to hang out together in the neighbourhood, ride bikes and build forts, that sort of thing.  I don’t remember who started it, but somebody asked somebody if they wanted to “go out” and then suddenly everyone was pairing up; everyone except me. “Going out” in those days didn’t actually mean you went anywhere with each other or did anything together.  You might hold hands for a minute or two but that was about it.

It was a popularity thing and because no one had asked me to be their girlfriend my self esteem was plummeting.  I felt pretty devastated.  She recognized all of this.  She was my friend and she didn’t like to see me sad so she came up with a plan to make me feel good again.  Looking back I have to admit it was pretty clever for a ten year old. One day at school I found a note folded in my desk.  It said:

Dear Bonnie,

You are pretty.

Your Secret Admirer

My heart beat faster. I looked around the classroom breathlessly trying to guess which boy had left me the note.  I could hardly wait to tell my girl friends about it when we walked home after school. We all poured over the note trying to get clues from the handwriting and took turns guessing who it could be. She eagerly offered her guesses too. I could barely sleep at night wondering who my mystery admirer was. A week later I found another note:

Dear Bonnie,

I really like you.

Your Secret Admirer

I was bursting with anticipation.  Who could this boy be?  My friends were all asking around but coming up with nothing. The pressure at school was building.  We were all talking about it but not getting any closer to the truth.

Then one day one she told me she knew who the secret admirer was.  She confessed that it had been her all along.  She explained that she only did it to make me feel special and popular and that she saw how hurt I had been when nobody asked me to “go out”.  She said she didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand and she was really sorry for starting the whole thing.  She begged me not to be mad at her, but I was.  I wouldn’t speak to her for a couple of weeks.  Not only did I feel like an idiot for believing in the notes but now I really knew for sure that no boy liked me.  I was too young to understand how kind her actions really were.  I needed time to cool off.  About the time I started speaking to her again a boy did ask me out.  I was a “girlfriend” finally, and the best part was I didn’t have to touch him or even talk to him if I didn’t want to -  and I didn’t . (How things would change.)  Needless to say it didn’t last very long or mean very much in the big picture of my “relationship” history.

She was at my 30 year high school reunion.  As soon as I saw her I rushed to put my arms around her and told her how pleased I was to see her again.  It was long over due but I wanted to thank her for the kindness she showed me when I was an awkward gangly ten year old with low self esteem. I was grateful for the opportunity to tell her how I now understood just how kind and thoughtful she had been and I will never forget her for it.

Sep 23, 2011

One of them was being raped by her step father.  One lived in a home where fighting and screaming happened too regularly.  One lived with drunks.  One lived in a home where she was almost entirely invisible.  These aren’t excuses.  These are facts. The circumstances of their lives made them angry.  Although you couldn’t always see it in them, it was there, just below the surface and easily tapped into.  Mostly they were eleven year old girls doing eleven year old girl things.  They played jacks and skipped and chased each other around the playground at school.

She was different.  She was bigger than the rest of them and her hair was never clean or brushed out properly.  Her clothes hung on her awkwardly and her shoulders slumped with some unseen weight on them.  She was the same age as the rest of them but somehow she seemed to be worn out by life already. This day she looked particularly…ugly.

They were all playing a game with a basket ball. Rules were made up as they went along but there was a tension in the air that seemed to grow with each throw of the ball.  Arguments kept erupting and the game had to be stopped while the rules were tweaked again and again.  The game was serious now.  It was important that they finish it right. Anger energized every toss of the ball.  They were fighting for power.  Power that none of them had at home.

But she wasn’t playing it right.  She kept missing the ball.  She moved too slowly to retrieve it when it whipped past her.  Her lazy movements and lack of enthusiasm irked the rest of them. Somebody swore at her.  Her face went red but she didn’t move any faster to get the ball the next time it came towards her.  This angered them even more.  She’s not even trying!

The ball was flung into the air again.  It was coming straight at her.  If she had been more into the game she would have seen it coming.  She should have been paying more attention.  It hit her hard just above her left ear.  Everyone stopped moving.  She did nothing.  She just stood there with her hands at her side.  It must have hurt but her expression didn’t change.

Then the girl, whose step father raped her regularly, picked up the ball and threw it hard at her again.  Nothing.  No reaction.  Someone else picked up the ball and aimed it for the back of her head.  Whack! The expression on her face still didn’t change and she wouldn’t cry.  Someone else grabbed the ball and aimed it at her.  She just looked down and waited.  She refused to fight back and it made them angrier. Whack! One more blow to her head.  Another throw and the ball thumped into her chest. This time she looked up at them and they saw the change in her.  She may not have lifted her arms or cried out but she was affected by them.  It showed in her eyes.  Their cruelty had blown out the last flicker of hope she’d held. Her eyes were empty.  Her soul had retreated.

The ball slowly rolled away from her but nobody wanted it anymore.  No one said a word. One by one they walked away.  Sick to their stomach by what they’d done; sick to their stomach with the world they lived in.

Sep 30, 2011