The Color of Remembering

“Her ability to use language,

that thing that most separates humans from animals,

was leaving her,

and she was feeling less and less human

as it departed.” 

(Lisa Genova, Still Alice)

Week by week my father, who is in palliative care, is slipping away from me. It is not so much that his body is dwindling, though he is diminished in physical bearing; rather, like a faded photograph, he is becoming blurred at the edges. The mild dementia he experienced prior to breaking his hip has escalated to a near-advanced state. 

When I looked into dad's eyes at our last visit I had to peer deeply to find him looking back. For a moment he would smile and ask something, or sing a line from a song with me, and then the light would dim and he was once again seeing worlds hidden from my limited view.

“I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside me?

Look at your eyes. They are small,

but they see enormous things.” 

(Rumi, The Essential Rumi)

I miss my dad - miss the jokes he would tell, miss him asking how we are all doing. I miss the intelligence and gentleness that shone through his beautiful brown eyes. As I nudge up against grief I feel parts of myself eroding, a weathering of the granite of my being. And yet, at the same time something deep and rich is revealed in the erosion - I realize that the heart of my dad was imperfectly expressed in words, providing only a meager glimpse into the soul behind his eyes. Though dusk falls upon his wakening, a greater light in stillness beckons notice.

Though Huxley (“Every man's memory is his private literature.”) and Gillies (“You only know yourself because of your memories.”) may refute it, I suggest that we are more than our memories. The Love of which we are comprised is not limited to neurons and synaptic pathways, or to the delicate processing of long and short term memory. Love pervades every cell, every molecule, each and every atom that gives us physical presence. We were Love before we were flesh; we will be Love when our atoms have returned to the earth.

All this to say that though dad's memories and general cognition decline, who he is, who he has always been, is becoming distilled. I sit at his bedside now, not to share conversation, but simply to bask in presence, in heart and soul. At an upcoming visit his eyes will no longer be a pathway to the man who helped shape my life; he will have cocooned himself in preparation for a great metamorphosis. He will not be gone, only stilled beneath the gentle mantle of a quiet mind.

Parts of me sorrow for what I perceive to be loss; parts of me rejoice that Love is not confined by the limits imposed by one's body and its warranty. Dad is slipping away, even as he draws nearer.

I leave the last word to author Janet Turpin Myers:

“Was the dementia of old age a blessing in disguise?

No more thoughts.

No more damage inflicted.

No more memories of damage survived.” 

(Janet Turpin Myers, the last year of confusion)

The color of remembering...

letting go.

Grasping water

in my

hands

only

soaks the

ground

Water

grasping me

bathes

my being

Breathe

Pray

Be

To Ponder Further:

- From the Bible: "My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre." (Psalm 49.3-4)

- From Korean traditional religion: "The one that is visible begins from the invisible. The invisible consists of three ultimates, and their essence is infinite." (Chun Boo Kyung)

- From Hinduism: "Now my breath and spirit goes to the Immortal, and this body ends in ashes; OM. O Mind! remember. Remember the deeds. Remember the actions." (Isha Upanishad 17, Yajur Veda 40.15)