A Sing-along for Those with Special Needs: Dementia Brought Us Closer

            It was really after Mom’s dementia that I re-established a relationship with her.  First, I saw her more often because she no longer left the house.   For some reason (or perhaps without any) Mother had developed a fear of bowels on the loose.  She became convinced that she was on the verge of a disgusting accident that could be best dealt with if she stayed within a foot or two of the toilet.  

          Once she was house-bound, I started going to see her every Friday to take the place of Kathy, really irreplaceable, who unlike Suzy and me was retired but taking on the 24/7 task of caring for our mother.  Suzy and I were getting on with our lives even as we mourned the decline of Mother’s, and Kathy wasn’t getting the help she needed even when we hired care-givers to relieve her.  Those Fridays turned me into a better daughter and a more nearly normal adult.  I started baking for Mom and Kathy, and while Kathy was out walking the dog, doing errands, seeing a movie, or getting a massage, Mom and I would read—sometimes the same passage over and over.

            “Here’s the article I wanted to read you!”  she’d say after she’d just finished reading it.

            But it felt warm there in the house Kathy kept so cozy and neat—two things our home had rarely been when Mom was married to Daddy, who thought—as Mom seemed to then too—that coziness and neatness were too bourgeois.  I tried, like them, to rise above cozy and neat, but even though I was basically a slob (nature and nurture),  I liked the homey feeling Kathy created.

            Mom wanted to read articles from the Progressive, Brecht’s Galileo, Ted Kennedy’s Compass, and whatever was that month’s selection for the book club she had attended for decades—the one she couldn’t remember she was no longer attending.  I think we read part of The Elegance of the Hedgehog.   Parts of Dancer.  I certainly remember  her reading aloud from that.

             “’Fucking in the rooms and fucking by the water fountain and fuckin…’  When Kathy walks in, I’ll have to change my verbiage,” Mom said, looking both shocked and delighted by the words on her page. 

            She’d also play the piano, and we’d sing from her I’ll Be Seeing You songbook.  When we came to “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” she’d say, “For my ninetieth birthday, some friends of mine are going to go with me to London, and we’re going to sing that song in Berkeley Square.”

            Then, when Kathy came back--Mom’s verbiage changed-- we’d all have the dinner I made, and sometimes I would spend the night.  When I left, I’d say, “See you next Friday, Mom!” and she’d say, “If I’m home.  Be sure to call because I might be out.”  That was after she’d been home-bound for several months.

           But I digress.  This is about Special Needs.  And not just about my brother’s or even my mother’s.  It’s about mine.