Remembering Me

“Do you remember who I am?” Mom asked.

Grandma looks at her with her sweet smile, her face, at ninety-three, so full of stories they almost obscure her eyes. She gives the briefest of nods, the kind that means maybe she does, but mostly, she doesn’t want to look like she doesn’t when she obviously should.

“Do you know my kids?” Grandma asks.

“I am your kid. I’m your one and only daughter,” Mom says cheerfully.

I don’t bother asking Grandma if she remembers me. She hasn’t recognized me as her granddaughter for several years, and I don’t want her to feel bad about it.

This is new for Mom, though, and I’m sure it bothers her more than she shows. On the other hand, when you’re losing someone to dementia, you have plenty of time to grieve before the next inevitable stage comes along. Mom is practical. I’m sure she’s made her peace.

She still comes every week to see Grandma. I come as often as I can. During the heavily restricted pandemic, that was less often than I liked. Now, I’m coming about once a week, too.

I come to see my sweet mother as much as to spend time with Grandma. It does Grandma good to hear us talking and laughing. It does us good to hear her laughing too.

We take her for a walk along the dike. The Peace River rolls along beside us as it always has. It never forgets anything. It remembers its boundaries, it remembers where it’s going, and it remembers where it’s been. It keeps going on and on, unapologetically, knowing it will still be here as silent witness to our fleeting lives long after we’re under the dirt.

I fear becoming the woman whose wheelchair I am pushing—memories of all the people I hold most precious to me faded like a photograph in the sun, my biggest excitement to notice the clouds or the cars or the birds. Noticing beauty is important, but that’s not what makes me who I am.

I know my mom fears it too. She’s joked about walking out on an iceberg when the time comes. I’ve joked about taking up skydiving. Both of us want to live our lives to the fullest until the very end.

Some days, I already feel adrift on an iceberg. The pandemic, and stress, and burnout, have already taken parts of me I used to hold dear. I’ve forgotten some of the best parts of who I am.

But I want to remember. I have a terrible memory, so I write the moment down. To remind me that the only way to forget a life well lived is to have lived one in the first place.

We sit on a bench. Mom and I talk, and when Grandma comments about something, we do our best to decipher her slurred words and include her in the conversation—though she can no longer follow ours.

It doesn’t matter. Her life serves a different purpose now—so we can love and serve her the way she served us for most of her active years. To remind us that a life well lived is full of stories, even if she bears them on her face now instead of her memory. To show her that she’s still wanted and valuable.

Does she remember who I am? No.

But I remember her. And, in doing so, I remember who I can be, too.

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Me and my beautiful mom and grandma beside the Peace River. Sunday, June 20, 2021.

Thumbnail photo of the Peace River Valley taken June 14, 2019.