There’s something almost time shattering about life with Alzheimer’s. On a visit to my grandparent’s place towards the end of his life, I remember waking early one morning and coming out to see grandpa in his chair. He’d been mostly gone the day before, but as I stepped into the living room that morning, he looked me straight in the eyes and said “Morning, Nathan. How’s it going?” I was a bit startled, since he hadn’t really remembered who I was the entire week we’d been there. We went on to have what felt like a “normal” conversation. Talking about the birds outside. Food. Something about an old friend of his that lived down the road. Not an hour later, the rest of the family was up, and eating breakfast together. And the “normal” was replaced by the new normal of don’t remember anything.
Moments like that made me question the entire narrative I had about the past. And memory. And time. I have had a few similar experiences during meditation, but for some reason, the shifting in the flesh and blood of my grandfather seemed more startling.
Who is this person? What happened to the person I knew? If this is true, then what does it mean to be “a person” in the first place?
We seem to both hold together in certain ways, and also fall apart – at the same time. Sometimes, the falling apart is drastic, other times it’s barely noticeable. But the sense of self most of us cling to really isn’t what we are. And that’s both liberating and scary. Don’t you think?
Image Credit
Yoga Meditation @ Wikimedia Commons
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