Notes on Pittsburgh (Where Is My Mind)
I arrived on Monday to spend a week with my mother, who is about to turn ninety-four.
Like many people her age, her memory is failing.
When I got to her apartment, I asked her if she had eaten lunch. It was one o'clock, and she said, 'I don't remember.'
Which wouldn't be a problem if we had a good way to track if and when she gets her meals.
We've hired aides to assist my mother but have learned that some agencies provide that information as a matter of course, and some do not.
Healthcare is a wilderness.
In the mornings, I went running through the forest and tried to clear my mind.
It seemed strange and tragic that my father had slowly lost his mind and now my mother was following in his footsteps.
What did this say about my future?
I tried not to think too much about what I would do if I felt like my mind was slipping away.
Or how short life begins to seem when you are observing someone in its final phases, and you begin to do the calculations forward and backward, e.g., 'my mother is x years older than I am, and I can easily remember being x years younger, and it doesn't seem so long ago.' Or maybe it does seem like a long time ago.
I met someone while tidying up my mother's garden, and I felt a connection: we're all striving for something.
I watched the sunset with my mother.
She seemed lost in her thoughts.
But I was also lost in thought.
What difference does it really make if you can remember if you ate lunch?
She is still my mother, but she is also disappearing.
The same could be said for all of us.
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