Old Memories

She woke up with a start. The old woman had a vague impression of her age, but not much else to go on as the last clouds of sleepy disorientation left. A wave of panic set in as she had no idea who she was or where this was. Her eyes scanned the room looking for clues, but everything was blurry. She looked down and saw glasses hanging from a necklace. She struggled to put them on, crying out in frustration when her arms shook too much to make it safe to put them near her face.

A woman rushed in from a hallway and seemed almost thankful it was not something more urgent. She smiled broadly and helped with the glasses. The old woman looked around again, but saw nothing more helpful when things were in focus. The younger woman, ‘Terry’ on her large nametag, was still waiting, smiling.

“Where am...” the older lady began. “Park Meadow Retirement Home” said Terry, before the question was entirely out. “And...?” said the weak, seemly embarrassed voice. Terry pushed the old woman’s wheelchair to another corner of the room, startling the seated occupant as they had forgotten again about the chairs mobility.

“We’re not going far.” said Terry, stopping in front of a decorated mirror. Her reflection gazing back at her, wisps of memory finally coming back to her clouded mind. “Gladis” said the old woman, pointing at herself with unsteady arms. Terry flipped open the paper stuck to the mirror, showing her patient her name spelled out in large cutout letters. “Got it pretty quick today.” said the nurse, still smiling.

“Is there anything else Miss Gladis? Hungry?” “No, nothing” replied the old woman. Terry pushed Gladis back toward the middle of the room, smiling extra broadly as she waved goodbye.

Gladis looked around the room a third time, pieces of recollection slowly falling into place. She reached out toward a small table with a black remote on it. All of the buttons were taped over, minus the red glowing power circle. She stabbed at the only available option with sore bony fingers.

After a third painful press she realized that it wasn’t pointing toward the TV well enough and kicked her legs till she pivoted in the right direction. One more press and the small set roared to life, inane banter from an enthusiastic game-show filled the room.

She wheeled back away from the TV, the improvised way of getting it to be more quiet. The small box seemed to understand the movement, and paused the show to ask “You seem to be moving away, did you want to turn down the volume?” “Down!” said Gladis rather loudly, feeling a bit braver knowing the device was listening. It dutifully did so.

Terry stood by the door again, having heard the voices but not the context. “Everything okay? Just talking to the TV again?” Gladis nodded and muttered to the affirmative, but stayed watching the show.

Terry lingered, wondering if today would be a clearer day for Gladis. She didn’t have to wait long.

“I know that man.” Gladis said wistfully once the show had gone to commercial. Terry clapped her hands. “Would you like to meet him?” Gladis looked around, self conscious and shy, but that vanished with the next commercial on. The kids on the TV seemed to be waving at her. “I know them too! Where are they?”

Terry dialed her phone quickly. “She’s back, she’s getting it together. Come quick!”

Gladis was wheeled out to the waiting room. Her son and grandkids were already there, wearing the clothes they had been in during the MemoryAid commercials.

“Why were you on TV?” asked Gladis, now sharp enough to remember that it was unusual to see people you knew in random broadcasts.

“Well, we thought....” began her son. Terry interrupted. “We thought it would be a nice surprise!”

Terry quickly sent Gladis’ son a text message. “She doesn’t remember me yet. So while this looks good...”

Gladis looked at her family and wondered aloud “Where’s your name tags?” The kids tried not to look too disappointed. They could tell their grandma struggling still, but the light of recognition in her eyes had set their hopes a little high.

Terry fished some tags out of her pocket giving them to the rest of the family. “Here we are!”

They tried to put them on as unawkwardly as possible. It seemed to help the old woman link more memories together. “You were here last week.”

Thankfully Gladis only seemed to recall that there were here recently, but not what happened.

Last week didn’t go as well, the whole exercise left everyone upset. They had arrived as soon as Terry had called, but they weren’t wearing the same clothes as the commercials. Gladis had trouble recognizing them or understand why they would be here, not remembering the flood of memories from seeing them on TV only a few minutes before.

This time they put that information to good use, and kept things as consistent as possible. The nametag was a new twist, but Terry had foreseen that wrinkle, and had printed out the rest of them just in case.

Gladis’ state of mind was still spotty, but when Terry had left the group to help another patient, something had jogged loose.

“Your wife is always so helpful. I wish I could remember her name.”

However, when Terry returned, Gladis only saw her as ‘the nurse’. The extra context of looking after her seemed to be working against the process. The MemoryAid commercials seemed to work better, the lack of pressure to remember, but still constant repetition seemed to be the key – at least in this case.

With all the extra work remembering, Gladis was soon tired again. What she would be like when she woke up would be a mystery. Terry wasn’t sure if she could handle smiling through the disappointment again.