All these years that you oppose yourself to your father, compete with him, all this long battle that never ended — it turns out that there will be neither a winner nor a loser in it. All that remains is the memory, for those who retain it, and the supply of love, gratitude or forgiveness that we carry within ourselves.
My father doesn’t recognize me anymore. He no longer recognizes anyone. It all started with a short memory disorder: he forgot the question he had just been asked, the answer he had just heard, asked the same question again, immediately forgot about it and asked again … It was like a broken record going on and on. The kids were amused, the adults were worried. Then the violations became more pronounced and took away from him more and more significant pieces of an increasingly ancient past. He perfectly remembered his childhood, his youth, and the last months and even years seemed to be erased from his memory. The doctors talked about Alzheimer’s disease, did all the necessary examinations, confirmed the diagnosis…
What he himself thought about all this, I do not really understand. He had, and still has, a wonderful wife who always supports him. He, too, probably did everything he could to support her, pretended that everything was in order, as far as he could, so as not to aggravate her misfortune. But the situation became more and more difficult, difficult and sad. Incontinence. Speech disorders. Behavioral disorders. He began to show aggression towards this woman, whom he did not recognize and who stubbornly remained by his side. He mistook her for another woman (my mother, who died many years ago). Did he recognize himself? His consciousness was just enough to understand that he was losing his mind, to see how he was dying in parts, to watch his own immersion in the abyss.
- Question to the expert: “I can’t come to terms with the fact that I’m losing my father”
The day came when he stopped eating and drinking. He allowed himself to die. He was hospitalized, put on drips, overcame dehydration … We are not allowed to die the way we want. The doctors, although they could not cure him, at the same time could not completely refuse to treat him. I don’t blame them for anything. They were doing their job, perhaps doing their duty. Who could do it for them? Children cannot make decisions about their father’s life. And he himself could not make any decisions at all. Everything continued as before. Then it got worse. Another hospital from which he will not leave.
One day he asked me how my father was doing: he had forgotten that I was his son. Then he asked how his own father, who had been dead for 40 years, was doing. He didn’t ask any more. Words became less and less, then they were completely gone. He will soon turn 87. He, who used to be so strong, so alive, so radiant in his own way, is now motionless and silent in his chair, as if extinguished, as if he had fallen into himself. Does he suffer? Who knows this? Maybe he forgets with every moment where he is, who he is, what is happening to him … The misfortune that you forget about — does it remain a misfortune?
- How We Forget: Five Features of Our Memory
“The spirit is memory,” said Blessed Augustine before Bergson, and I have never realized this more clearly than in the department of gerontology. My father’s body seemed untouched by disease: he was still a prominent man. But other patients, older than him, with more severe ailments, remained themselves to a greater extent. They remembered themselves, but he forgot. Who we are internally is how we remember ourselves. Thinking is remembering your thoughts. To love is to remember those you love. Making plans, waiting, hoping is to remember the future that you have, or you think you have. Even to feel is to remember what you feel. Memory is not a dimension of consciousness, it is consciousness.
From a philosophical point of view, several important conclusions can be drawn from this. Alzheimer’s disease is a disease of the brain, not of the soul. A materialist like me sees this as a kind of tragic confirmation of his views, which he could very well do without. But this is exactly the case: the last word remains with our body, or the last silence, as in the very beginning of life. How else? How can consciousness be the opposite of matter, if it depends on it, if it acts as its carrier, if it generates it in the human brain, supports it or, on the contrary, erases it? The mind is memory, and memory is a function of the body, alas, as fragile as the body, and just as subject to aging and death. I see this as a cause for sadness. And a strong argument in favor of enjoying youth, health, consciousness. None of this lasts forever, even in our lifetime.
- «My mother has dementia»
And for the son that I am, there is another lesson in this. All these years that you oppose yourself to your father, compete with him, all this long battle that never ended — it turns out that there will be neither a winner nor a loser in it. As children, we were too weak to win. In youth — too impatient, immature, incomplete. It took us a lifetime to become more or less what we wanted to be, to build and strengthen ourselves—to grow. Victory is finally on the horizon. Too late. The one we wanted to defeat is no longer able to fight, resist, or even be defeated.
All that remains is the memory, for those who retain it, and the supply of love, gratitude or forgiveness that we carry within ourselves.