As the kaleidoscope turns . . .

There is an upside to Alzheimer’s you wouldn't realize unless you live with someone who has the disease. My mother jumps in an out of the last century like some people click through cable channels. Some days she is still in high school and expecting a visit from her boyfriend Rico, other days she is singing a song she learned in her grade school choir.

She doesn’t recognize a portrait of my father in the foyer that was taken when he was in his 60s but if I show her a picture of him in his army uniform she knows exactly who he is. You just need to meet her where she is, or as I recently learned, where she might have been.

The other day a social worker came to visit. It was the annual Elder Services check in. I updated her on how mom's cognitive decline continues to be slow but steady and changes to the care plan including how we ditched the dentures because they gagged her and the hearing aids too because they buzzed loudly and are an utter waste of time.

"What did you say?" mom interrupted then wandered away seeming to pay no mind to either of us. 

Other than the hearing loss, the worker was impressed with how well mom was doing at the age of 93 in her stage of dementia.

Then suddenly mom wandered back to the table. She stopped and looked at the woman, “You look just like my sister Denise.”

The worker was a slender pretty woman with olive skin probably in her late 30s. Her shoulder length soft brown curly hair had just a few wisps of gray that she didn’t try to hide. Even while I had only ever seen my aunt in aged black and white photos I could see what mom was talking about. My aunt was fairer than mom and had long ringlets of brown hair.

The woman smiled not knowing what to say until I explained that Denise was my mother’s twin who died of scarlet fever when they were 15-years-old.

What the worker didn’t realize was that Mom’s cognitive kaleidoscope had clicked another notch and produced a genealogical treasure for me, one more unique and special than revealing the name of her high school beau or songs she learned in grammar school.

The woman and I finished our paperwork. I stared at her across the table. A woman I hardly knew, a woman who visits once a year, a woman wearing the face of my middle aged aunt had she survived. 

What a gift.