ABSTRACT
I shall begin this essay by referring briefl y to two conversations I recently had with my mother, who suffers from dementia. In the fi rst, she was complaining, yet again, about her living situation. Just over a year earlier, she had moved into an assisted living residence. She had done so reluctantly but (more or less) willingly: Given some of the diffi culties she had been having with cooking, cleaning, and other such activities, and given as well the occasional loneliness of living by herself, she had come to see that she might be better off elsewhere. But this has brought diffi culties of its own, not the least of which concerns the fact that most of the time she has no idea at all why she is there and resents it immensely. A new woman just moved in, she told me last week. And apparently, every time she’s fi nished with dinner she asks my mother where the Bingo game is being played. “She asks the same question over and over again!,” my mother complained angrily. “She’s stupid!” “It’s got nothing to do with stupidity,” I tell her; “it sounds like she’s got some memory problems, and if truth be known (I add, as gently as possible), they’re similar to yours.” My mother is momentarily speechless, both knowing and not-knowing at the same time. And then a couple of minutes later she tells the same story once more, displaying through her own repetition the exact same malady she has just condemned.
