My eyes welled up with tears as I listened to my father describe how he didn’t know where to find my mother. ” I couldn’t remember where she was, so I walked down the hall and asked a staff person I recognized”. The vision of him, using his walker, shuffling through Royal Park’s hallways made me weep.
Besides feeling sadness hearing him recount this event, it made me want to research brain science. How does the brain work when a spouse sees his beloved wife deal with pain? Does his memory, already eroding, change faster? Does the stress and sadness cause memory loss to increase?
In our conversation, I realized that there were other things he could not remember. The conversation, that he should avoid bread because of stomachaches, only happened yesterday, but… he had no recollection of it.
How do you change the course of the brain?? Does strengthening help?
My father, despite being a Dutch immigrant and not well-versed in the English language, always enjoys writing. So… I gave him an assignment. Write poems for Mom. Will this strengthen his brainpower? Time will tell.
A Journey Worth Remembering 