Happy Thanksgiving

Frieda

So my dad and I are sorting through my mother's old things when we exclaim in unison: "Mama!" "Frieda!" What a find: A beautiful hand-tinted 8x12 photograph of my mother taken around the time she met my father.

All work stops to find the perfect spot to hang the portrait. When we are done, Opa asks, "Where is Frieda now?" For me,  one of the hardest things about dementia is having to answer this question with "She passed away, Daddy" and seeing my father react as though he were hearing this for the first time.

Frieda (circa 1950)

The truth was always of the highest value to Opa who wouldn't even tell a white life. When Opa said a thing, you knew he meant it. I have always tried to honor this in my own life. And I wanted to uphold the truth for him even though the truth was sometimes painful. But this changed. After a time, when Opa would ask me where my mother was, I would lie. I would tell him that she was working in her shop and would be home later. Opa always believed me and was content with this answer.

Opa believed me when, in the last hours of his life, delirious and struggling hard to stay alive, I whispered in his ear, "It's time to go home, Frieda is waiting for you there." For a moment he was calm. He looked intently into my eyes, and I saw a single tear roll down his cheek. He knew I was telling the truth and he seemed content with it.

Caregivers Education Series: Class 3

"The past which is not recoverable in any other way is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can regain a sense of identity. . ." — Oliver Sacks

 What stands out the most for me from tonight's class is the research about music and memory.   

While we all know that familiar songs from our personal past have the power to trigger emotionally salient memories, findings have shown that this spontaneous activation is preserved even in persons with advanced dementia (Janata, 2009).

For a testament of the power of music to preserve identity, trigger memory, and enliven the self, watch this moving clip of Henry from the documentary Alive Inside.



References
Janata, P. (2009). The Neural Architecture of Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories. Cerebral Cortex, 19 (11). doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp008