Mom, memory, and finding meaning

These past three months that Mom has been in the hospital and rehab, I’ve likely spent more concentrated quality time with her than I have in years. When Mom was living in my home, life continued at its busy pace and she was part of the mix. Spending several hours each day in the hospital for nearly 90 days, I’ve had a chance to give Mom my undivided attention—no Zoom calls to be on or soup to stir. With nothing but time between blood pressure tests, various scans, and PT sessions, I started thinking of ways to remind her of her full, long, beautiful life story.

But how do you remind someone of the mosaic of their life if it’s their memory that’s fading?

Mom already had moderate dementia, she couldn’t remember what she’d had for breakfast or if I had visited her the day before; the two strokes made it worse. But she still knows who I am, and recognizes all the family who have come to visit, if not by name at least by love.

One day, my cousin texted me a beautiful black and white photo that included my mom (above). I showed it to her, enlarging it on my phone, and asked her to identify who was who. I could almost hear her mind whirring as she racked her memory to recall the names. She remembered them, with a few clues. Then I asked Mom to describe what she was wearing, what the occasion may have been, where the photo was taken; I mined the image for every detail to keep her engaged. It unlocked one of the most beautiful exchanges I’ve had with her—not because it was deep, there were no wisdoms shared, but because it was gentle, and patient, and meaningful in its absolute simplicity. It allowed me to hear her voice for longer than it takes to answer mundane questions, to hear her laugh as she thought of happier times, to see her imagine her younger self bedecked in chooris and jhumkas.

The next day, I pulled up more old photos that I had saved on my phone. There was one of little Zayd wearing a sherwani, his lips painted red from a lollipop. It triggered mom’s memory of him when he was a little boy, rolling a yellow Shop Rite truck on the family room carpet in their Cranbury, NJ home. Zayd would take bananas and apples from the fruit bowl, fill the back of his truck, and sell them back to Nani and Nana for 25 cents each! We had a good laugh, noting his early entrepreneurial tendencies.

A family photo taken in East Pakistan when I was maybe four or five led to stories about how we’d go to Golpahar in Chittagong for Eid and the mithai we’d eat at my mammo and mami’s house. A photo of mom’s three brothers uncovered memories of the outings her eldest brother would take her on. Another of my brother as a baby had us discussing why he was wearing a dress. A classic photo of mom and her sisters and their spouses, taken in Chicago when we first came to America, caused some confusion when mom couldn’t recognize herself in the photo, she kept mistaking herself for her younger sister.

I end each photo reminiscence by reminding her of her loving family, her beautiful life, her joyful years.

I realized through these conversations that I was becoming the keeper of mom’s story. I started pressing voice record on my phone before showing her a photo. These recordings feel like a sacred soundtrack of her life.

One day, as I was showing mom a photo of her and her three sisters and one of her brothers (above), she paused after a few minutes. She noticed that I was bending awkwardly over her hospital bed holding my phone so she could better see the image. “Ok never mind, your hand must be aching,” she said.

And that was my reminder. That even as dementia and strokes are stripping away mom’s memories, they can not erase her fundamental nature. Her concern for my smallest discomfort is etched in such deep grooves in her mind, through a lifetime of care, that nothing can shake it; it surfaces at a moment’s notice, no clues required.

Even as so much is taken, this remains. Alhumdulillah.

With all my love, and with prayers for all our moms,

Salma