In This Moment

I wish I could stop time for her, before she forgets. Connie is living with Alzheimer's.

          "Help me, help me, help me," she repeats over and over in a soft voice, even as I stand beside her holding her frail hand in my own. "What do you need, Connie?" I ask. She stops and her grey eyes, that match the color of her hair, gloss over and she looks up at me. She's thinking and it seems to me that this task hurts. Her eyes fill with puddles as she searches for anything she could say to keep me there, to keep my interest, so I won't turn and walk away. Her eyes close slowly, then she opens them as a tear rolls down her cheek and "help me, help me, help me," come softly from her lips again.



         I know she doesn't need help, but I still feel like I should ask, just in case. Connie drives the other residents nuts with this constant rhythmic song. Everyone knows she needs no help, even she knows, but, in my opinion, it's the only words she can say without having to pick her own brain for conversation. As long as she's saying these words, people know she's still here, still in this moment, her memory still belongs to her.



         I've been working at this facility for two years now and upon starting my position, I told myself I was not going to get attached to any resident here. It would be easy" I told myself, I work in the kitchen, away from the residents. My plan worked for all of a week, maybe less than that. It worked, until the first time I heard the desperate plea of "help me" as she reached out and took my co-workers hand and smiled. My heart sank, it filled with sympathy and compassion for this woman I have come to know. A woman I find myself looking for each and every time I enter through the Dementia unit doors.



         Connie's memory has not been completely eaten away by this disease yet, not like some of the others. She is, however, stuck in time somewhere in the past, when her daughters were younger, when she was younger. She is confused and she confuses others. She knows she has three daughters and remembers one passed away at a very young age. She knows she has three granddaughters as well, but her memory is stuck at her youngest living daughter being only fourteen. Yet this is the child who has three daughters of her own. I know better than to argue with her. I just listen and tell her I bet she's a wonderful mother. I remind her that all her children love her, even if they can not come to visit as much as Connie (and I) wishes they could. She remembers her ex husband and what she went through being married to that man. (This is one of those memories I wish would have been the first to be devoured by her illness.) She remembers her mother and father and knows they are both gone.



         She knows her family.



         Eventually, I know, her memories will fade from her. They will be eaten away like rust eats away metal. There is no cure. There is no going forward, making plans for tomorrow. She is in this moment. She will be here until she slips back further into the past, until she's a child calling out for her mother. Then, she will slide even further, not remembering anyone. Not her children, her ex- husband, her mother, or ...herself. I dread the day I come to her and she no longer reaches for my hand and says, "Oh, it's you. I knew you'd come back, you always do." I want to stop time for her now, this moment, before she can no longer cry out for help, before she becomes frail and skinny and weak because she's forgotten how to eat. Because she can't remember to swallow. I want to stop the time now, before the day she forgets to breathe. 





An update on Connie: Right before I went on maternity leave, her daughter came and took her out of our facility and moved her closer to her. I'm thankful for that, now her daughters can visit her more often as I heard that she was becoming very skinny, unable to eat much. She stopped saying help me, help me, help me, which frankly scares me because I know it won't be long. No one has been in touch with the family since her move so no one knows if she's still alive. I hope so, but then again....