Losing Mom, one memory at a time

 Memory loss is an insidious thing. It works quietly and stealthily, chipping away the most benign thoughts at first. And when that’s no longer enough, it commandeers whole thought processes and memories you’d swear were so deeply embedded they were untouchable.

I first noticed something amiss with my mother’s memory about a year and a half ago. She’d been getting progressively forgetful, and we could laugh or shrug away most of glitches as “senior moments.”

But this was different.

When I told her we were heading to Sidney, where we lived for 12 years and still go back every year to run a bratwurst stand at the county fair, Mom drew a blank, even though she’d even traveled to Sidney a couple of summers to help out at the fair when our kids were young.

“So, what is it you do in Sidney?” she asked.

I remember that sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized this was true memory loss, but I rationalized the breach. I’d called too early in the morning; Mom wasn’t fully awake yet. I was sure of it.

I certainly wasn’t willing to believe that my mother, the human data bank for our family who could rattle off every maternal and paternal relative’s name for at least three generations back, was slipping. Mom had always known how everyone in our hometown was related, who was cousins with whom, that kind of geneological drill. She knew where everything was at home, even in the maze of boxes that filled an extra bedroom.

There was no need for a bulletin board or daybook at our house. Mom had four children’s schedules memorized, and we were in every extracurricular activity offered.

Mom knew everything.

But a few months ago when my sister-in-law was dealing with the painful blistering skin rash called shingles, Mom couldn’t remember how she had gone to the ends of the earth to find a remedy for my father’s shingles, an affliction he dealt with for years. Mom had applied salves and compresses for years and yet couldn’t recall any of it.

Last summer my middle brother, who sees Mom at least two to three times a week, scheduled an appointment with a neurologist. He knew her short-term memory loss was getting worse.

It upset her. She was in denial, even though she’d been the same kind of proactive advocate for my father several years ago when his memory began to fail.

The rest of us siblings also were in denial. At the time Mom needed surgery on her esophagus. Let’s postpone the trip to the neurologist until she recuperates from the surgery, we urged, and so the appointment was canceled.

Of course in hindsight we should have followed through, gotten Mom on Aricept or whatever other medication can buy her some time. Now six months have gone by and we’ve yet to schedule another appointment with the neurologist. It’ll probably happen in January.

The breaches in her memory bank are becoming more and more frequent. Phone calls that used to last more than an hour as Mom prattled on about everyday life have dwindled to about 20 minutes. I can no longer ask her, “Remember when...” because she doesn’t remember when.

Questions are reshaped, subjects avoided, and it’s painful to witness this kind of erosion of memories — our family’s collective memories — that we’d long ago entrusted to Mom, the memory keeper.

This situation and her Jan. 20 birthday are what compel me to fly to Fargo, N.D., in a few weeks in the dead of winter. She’ll be 84, which doesn’t seem that old somehow, but time is running out. Whatever memories my mother is able to share, I want to be there to savor them.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.