Monologue

by Zaariyah Bashir

If there’s anything I’ve learnt this past year, it’s that time is a tricky little bugger. It takes almost an entire lifetime to make memories that ultimately define you and just a couple of months and one diagnosis to sweep them all away.

I remember the day you were diagnosed. It was the day I learnt what senile dementia really meant – loss of brain function with old age. That was the way the doctor so sweetly put it. It hadn’t sounded particularly pretty.

I was right. It wasn’t pretty. I remember how you forgot your own name and then mine and eventually mum’s too. I remember the look of genuine bewilderment that spread across your face as you struggled to recall them. I remember watching you trying to figure out how to use a fork and knife at dinner, looking like a helpless child. I remember realizing, at that point, that it was time to put you under proper care.

Often, mum wakes up in the middle of the night calling out for you, only to realize that you’re not there. We come to see you a lot at the hospital, mum and I. We’re not sure if any of it makes sense to you, but we take consolation in the fact that we can still talk to you. You’re not completely gone, right? Sometimes you ask me why I’m crying, endearingly, like you did when I was little, when I sit beside you, only to watch you have a panic attack at the sight of me because you think I’m the ‘nasty nurse trying to poison you with sedatives.’

It only gets worse with time. Now you’ve lost motor control and can’t even lift your hand to hold mine. The other day, you forgot how to chew and almost choked on your own food.

I’m not completely sure if you would understand any of this if I said it to you. I think you lost that ability somewhere along this unfortunate ride. I know you’re still there somewhere, where every word I say makes sense to you. I sincerely hope that, in that place, in your disoriented head, you are happy and I hope happy is the way you go. I’m not pessimistic. I just know that time plays mind tricks because time does not heal. It remains only as the constant reminder of what once was.