Thinking Inside the Box

From the memoirs of Pat Otterness

Thinking Inside the Box

??????? I don’t have Alzheimer’s, thank goodness, but as I age I am developing a gradual dementia that robs me of memory. The first to disappear were nouns and names. The harder I tried to recall them, the more difficult they were to retrieve, even words I had fixed clearly in my mind only moments before. For a writer, this was more than an inconvenience.?

The first occasion of this I remember was when Biden was Vice President. I knew his name, after the election, nearly as well as my own. I could picture his face. But to save my life, I couldn’t retrieve his name from my memory banks. I remember lying in bed for hours one night, trying to remember his name for no other reason than to find it, to prove that I could. Finally, through trial and error, I came up with “Joe”, and soon after, “Biden” joined it. It was a first round in the memory sweepstakes, and I had won that one. I was astonished at how long it had taken.

????????????Since then, many other names and nouns of all kinds have followed Joe Biden into the void. I have never lost Joe again, but many of my misplaced words go missing time after time. I have devised systems for finding them again, but then my memory will forget the systems I set up. It is very trying.

????????????My son fails to understand this failing memory thing. When I tell him I don’t remember something, he tries to prove to me that I am wrong, that I do remember, and usually a quarrel ensues. As more and more of my memory is fading, it can become quite a skirmish. He seems to remember everything. He is in his early fifties. I, at almost eighty, remember far less. This puts us at odds when we reminisce. I know people tend to remember different aspects of happenings in their lives. I once heard my mother and two of her siblings (all in their 70s) having explosively different memories of an event from their childhood. I think my son can’t bear that my memories bear little resemblance to his.

????????????It is from this perspective that I wonder what goes on in the heads of those suffering from Alzheimer’s or other serious forms of dementia. What thinking goes on inside that box? Are there memories inside, floating unanchored, or have they vanished without a trace? In some ways I equate dementia with severe autism, because it places these loved ones outside our reach. I wonder if there is a substance yet unknown that can reclaim these minds, these personalities, from the box where they, locked in, look out with such blank stares.

????????????Oliver Sacks, the neurologist, wrote a wonderful book that was made into a movie, called Awakenings, starring Robin Williams. In this movie, Robin stars as a young doctor facing patients who appear to be without feeling, who sit like stones, still breathing, with no outward sign of enjoying life. He finds a treatment, although only temporary, that brings these statues back to vibrant life. It is heartwarming, and then heartbreaking, the more so because it is a true story based on the real-life experiences of Oliver Sacks.

????????????I am faced with situations more and more frequently that could once have been solved by memory. Now they involve relearning, and my short-term memory is even worse than my long term one. Every simple task becomes a struggle, and sometimes I just want to throw in the towel and give up. Just sit and vegetate. Allow my mind to go completely blank. Instead, I do Sudoku puzzles, and write stories, and weave, and garden, and try to tend the few neurons still firing away in my head. But still I wonder: what goes on inside the box? Is all that knowledge lost, or like modern technology, has it just been restructured with passwords I haven’t yet found? I’m glad I am still able to be curious, to wonder and to marvel at what is around me.