The Long Slow Goodbye
My mother wouldn’t let go of my hand. Six years ago, at Delhi airport, I put her on a flight to Heathrow, to my sister, a doctor, who would get her properly diagnosed. I was returning to New York, and although she was in the care of a nephew on the same flight, mother seemed lost and terrified, and I felt the first piercing pang of guilt and sorrow. Since then, her dementia has spiraled into full-blown Alzheimer’s. And the momentary lapses of memory are now hallucinations; surreal episodes of a child being separated from the family in the carnival of life, the terror and uncertainty of drifting into the unknown a daily occurrence.
There are nearly 44 million patients suffering from Alzheimer’s in the world. And each is drifting slow-motion into the lonely abyss, some more tormented than others, but all of them losing their cognitive function bit by bit, the past, present and future scrambled like an omelet, faces and events drifting in and out like in a surreal film. Sometimes the memory of a loss returning again and again so you mourn a death multiple times, and don’t remember your life, your children, your home and family. Other times, you live in some halcyon visage of the past, friends and enemies, joys and sorrows all part of the same bizarre pastiche.
Those caring for Alzheimer’s patients are heroes and angels. For there is nothing more sacred than protecting those who have lost the compass, like helpless children adrift in a world of uncertainty and danger. My eldest sister, Yasmin, is one of them- providing the trembling bright light, the steadiness and 24/7 love needed by those who cannot care for themselves any more. Lucky is she that she can do this, and blessed are those who have the opportunity to care for the vulnerable.
My mother is a hero, a rebel warrior, a feminist before the word was invented, a saint before saints were tainted, a selfless matriarch with limitless generosity and infinite love. She was there when you crashed your car to save you from bleeding to death, she appeared without fuss when you were one meal away from starvation, she was the one who staved off the vultures of bankruptcy, the one who salvaged you from the indignity of dying alone, incontinent and forsaken- a woman so strong and self-reliant she was the only constant in an ocean of uncertainty.
To see her disappear into the swirling mist of Alzheimer’s leaves me utterly sorrowed. And to see all those she served and stood beside also disappear when she most needs them is a sad comment on the world we live in. Or maybe it’s my naiveté. Society favors only the healthy and usable. Once you are fallen to disrepute or disease or misfortune, you are forsaken, gone in a flash, your miracles and service and generosity an inconvenient truth that will soon disappear like you.
As you gather to celebrate these holidays, look around the table. Some of those with you may not be there next year. Like all the loved ones I lost in 2017, they may be gone tomorrow, vanished slowly or suddenly into the great absence. Touch them and be kind and say the things you’ve always wanted to. Forgive them and embrace them one more time. Be generous and tender to those who loved you and also to those who didn’t. Disappearing never to return is a terribly lonely thing. Like Ronald Reagan, like Glen Campbell, like Mr. Ravindran, Paul’s Dad and Mrs. Simon. Like the swallows hurtling into the twilight sky, like my mother on the evening terrace of a beautiful life lived and slowly forgotten- they may be gone forever soon.