The Space of What Could Have Been

Summary

The narrative explores the transformation of a mother's self-perception and relationships through the progression of her dementia, revealing the complexities of beauty, memory, and regret.

Abstract

The author describes the profound changes in their ninety-three-year-old mother, who now lives with dementia in an apartment above their sister's garage. Despite her physical decline, the mother exhibits a newfound joy and openness, contrasting sharply with her previous self-critical nature and dissatisfaction with life. The mother, once preoccupied with her fading beauty and resentment towards her husband, now exists in a state of contentment, free from the negative thoughts that once plagued her. The author reflects on the mother's past, her lost youth, and the dreams that were never realized, acknowledging the beauty in her mother's acceptance of the present. The narrative touches on the power of stories, particularly the stories we tell ourselves, as the mother's perception of her husband shifts from one of bitterness to affection, influenced by the selective memory loss caused by her condition.

Opinions

The author believes their mother's dementia has paradoxically liberated her from a lifetime of self-criticism and regret, allowing her to experience joy more freely.
The mother's previous fixation on her appearance and lost beauty is portrayed as a source of personal torment, which has now dissipated with her condition.
The mother's past resentment towards her husband for his infidelity and perceived failings has been replaced by a nostalgic and affectionate view of him, possibly due to the selective nature of her memory loss.
The author seems to find solace in their mother's newfound peace and the simplicity of her needs and desires in her current state.
The narrative suggests that the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality and emotional well-being, and in the case of the mother, her altered memories have created a more harmonious inner world.

The Space of What Could Have Been

My mother is ninety-three and lives above my sister’s garage in a converted apartment, but not really. Her body is there, diapered and hunched and mostly immobile, but she is elsewhere. I guide her fingers to the soft ear of a toy rabbit. She smiles wide. This, she never would have done before. Toothy smiles stretched her skin and made her look like a crone, she said. By the time I was ten, my mother was old and done for, her beauty gone and her best years wasted. I told her always that she was beautiful, more beautiful even than Scarlett O-Hara. And always she corrected me: I was beautiful before your father ruined me.

When dementia struck the set and sent all the actors home, leaving my mother in the empty space of a bare stage, she forgot that she’d been unhappy most of her life. She forgot that she despised my father for being a two-timing-filthy-mouthed jackass whose dreams were too big for his brains — and on it went for five decades of marriage. She forgot, too, that she was beautiful and terrified of growing old. The ticker-tape of self-loathing was finally gone.

I sit with her now, surrounded by traces of a lost colony. There, is the clock that hung in the kitchen of my childhood home. There, is the tiny glass bird she managed to save when the Nazis invaded her home. I see her young hand reaching for the bird, a spoon, a pen — for something needed in a moment lived long ago and think: she’s never been more beautiful than now. The resentment that clouded her eyes is gone. Her hair is thin but what remains is perfect silver. “You’re beautiful, mommy,” I tell her. “You have green eyes and hair like moonlight.” “Oh!” she says, smiling at the news of it.

One by one, dementia struck the negative thoughts, carrying off the useless props that cluttered her mind. I was glad to see them go. She used to cover her mouth when she belly-laughed to hide the wrinkling of her cheeks. I tell her a silly rhyme and she tosses her head and laughs, lit from within. She no longer dyes her hair or stares into the mirror, bitter. She begins to forget me, too. It’s a difficult thing to be forgotten by someone you love, and to watch the act of it performed. But there is mercy in it, for some.

There was a suitcase my father made her leave behind when the airlines said they’d gone over limit. It was 1950-something. “My sister will ship it once we get to America,” he told her. By the time I enter the story in the 70s, my mother’s suitcase is gone forever. Inside, is everything she needs to be happy. The suitcase grew more spacious every year, so spacious that it held volumes of Tolstoy and Dickens, rare medical books and exotic herbs, gowns and fur coats, artifacts from far-flung places brought to her by men she should have married instead of my father. Once, when we were being evicted, she screamed at him, saying she could have saved us by selling the pearls that were in the red suitcase. If it hadn’t been for him, she said, we wouldn’t have to flee like thieves in the night.

I asked my father what was in the red suitcase. Were there really pearls and furs? No, he said. Some clothes, and letters I wrote to your mother. Love letters. And a coral necklace, from her mother.

The stories we tell ourselves are powerful things. Sometimes we tell the same story over and over, ensuring the ink will never dry.

I show her a picture of my father and she becomes emotional. “Do you remember him?”

Yes, he was a good man. I loved him.

“Did you?”

Yes. But he’s gone, I think.

I take her to the Alzheimer’s home where my father is. The stage is sparse. A table, an old television, and two chairs. I set the scene: I tell them they are husband and wife and that they love each other very much. I place her hand in his. She smiles. They like this story. It’s a good story to end on.