The Familiar Stranger

I feel uncomfortable perched on the familiar ratty old couch. The faces from the pictures hanging on the wall, stare down on me. Judging and sceptical. The faces of a thousand different memories. I see my younger face, happier grinning out from the majority. Free from the lines of worry and fear brought on by the years of adulthood I have faced.

Looking around, I fidget nervously. A steely blue gaze is watching my every move. From the face of a withered old stranger, penetrating blue eyes gleamed, staring at me straight in the eye, as clear and bright as the sky. It was unnerving, how these eyes that held so much meaning, can be so cold and distant. Showing no recognition towards the face before them, simply searching and questioning. A face that those eyes should recognise, even if it had been years since they had seen it.

Twisting my hands, I clear my throat, unsure of what to say. The eyes turn from me, back on the food being gently shovelled towards her small mouth. The face of the man feeding her, she only seems to recognise slightly better than my own.

Growing stronger every second, I feel an overwhelming pity in the deep of my stomach. It brings a lump to my throat, and unbearable guilt spread through my chest.

“Dad? I’m so sorry.” It seems so little, unsatisfactory. My voice cracks and breaks, a sound similar to that of twigs snapping. My dad simply pauses in the act of preparing another spoonful, looking down. The grey eyes I inherited stare intently at his beige trousers. He sighed softly. Then, his grey eyes sparkling with tears, he raised his balding head to smile at me. It was a forced, yet gentle smile. It broke my heart. Made me wish I had done more. Stayed closer, given them the grandchildren they always wanted, the daughter in law they always dreamed for. I hadn’t given them any of these things, and this sudden recognition was like an aching weight across my chest.

Who would feed me when I no longer could? Who would dress me, make sure I was clean, well-cared for? My parents would be long gone, any sisters or brothers too busy with their own lives, much like myself, to help. I realised with growing certainty that without a partner, wife, I would die alone. I wondered how many people also awaited this fate. How many people lived and died without family, a partner, a sibling? And how many people had that absolute love, that trust that they could completely depend on that one person? Put your own life, totally and completely into the hands of another. I found it hard to comprehend, the amount my mother depends on my father to survive. Your family were there for the time when you couldn’t first look after yourself, but it is up to you to find someone who will look after you in the end.

I snapped out of my train of thought, this was not the time. I moved over to crouch beside my mother. She looked up in fear, still not recognising my face; her eyes still the only thing that gave me some comfort that this wasn’t a stranger lain out before me. I had tried to prepare myself for this on my way here. The way her disease would have changed her. The way it would have transformed her from the inspiring strong woman she was, into the terrified old lady she had become because of the dementia. Crouched down beside her, I reached out for her shaking waving hands and holding them within my own. My attempts to quieten her whimpers were lost as those eyes focused on mine, as grey as hers were blue. I saw it, the glimmers of recognition, before her face broke out into a surprisingly wide smile.

“Ross? Is that you?” her voice was weak and shaky, but you couldn’t mistake the underlying joy there. Or the tears glittering in her eyes, especially when one escaped and trickled down the hollow wrinkled cheeks. A grin spread across my own face, as well as a wash relief. I sighed happily, a breathy laugh escaping my dry mouth.

She remembered me.

We talked for about an hour, simply about the old days. After a while, she pulled me closer, to whisper in my ear.

“Albert, who is that old man sitting there staring? Do you know him, Albert?” my heart sank. She had called me by father’s name and didn’t recognise her own husband. I tried to explain, but she only got confused. After she started wailing — harsh croaky sounds escaping from her withered old mouth, tears streaming down her face, fear in her eyes — my father carried her to the bedroom. He softly murmured her name, Glenda, again and again. The pain and suffering was clear in his voice. It came to me, that he endured this everyday. He put his whole life behind him to care for the woman he loved when she didn’t even know him most of the time. It put another thought into my mind; is it worth it?

Why live like that? What purpose does it face? Living in such helplessness, with no independence, no opinion? Like a caged bird, with its wings clipped, unable to fly, or hunt for itself, it lives trapped within itself, dependant on the others to keep it alive. Is it my mothers choice, or would she rather end it, be at peace? Or is it my father keeping her alive, in the hope she will one day return to him, the Glenda he fell in love with? The woman who raised his children?  Would it not be easier, better, to live your life until you were unable to live it for yourself anymore? Is it wrong that there isn’t a way for the people living trapped in their own body, to escape peacefully? All this runs through my head at a hundred miles an hour, while I watch my father come back into the room closing the door behind him.

He sits down on the couch and begins to cry. Like I imagine he does every night. And as if I were the father and he the son, I begin to comfort him, while thoughts of right and wrong swirl around in my head.

I stood outside that night, the sun setting, the autumn leaves drifting down from the trees. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t waste another second and I would do all the things I’d always dreamed before it was too late.

By EW (S2)

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