Memory is fluid and tricky. When I was a child, a neighbor found my Grandma Cora adrift in her own neighborhood, lost and unable to remember her way home.
I learned then that memory can flow or ebb or even run everything you know through a spin cycle. We soon discovered from the doctors that my sweet grandmother’s brainwaves had been disrupted by clumps of tangled proteins that sat between her neurons, leaving the synapses unable to connect.
She’d spent her life as the caretaker, but the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s meant she now needed us to take care of her.
Grandma came to live with us, and it was quickly evident that she could no longer remember what we’d talked about minutes before. Depending on the day, my dad might be her son, her dad or her brother, and my mom either her daughter-in-law or a friendly woman she couldn’t quite place.
Occasionally my brothers and I were her grandchildren; usually we were more like siblings. Every day she forgot my name, yet she still loved me.
Words of belief remained. She could still read her Bible—although sometimes the same page, over and over. Scripture, hymns, prayers and creeds were a comfort to Grandma; something I began to understand for myself as an adult, whenever I struggled to see things clearly.
Speaking our words of belief aloud matters. And those words stay with us long after other things fade.
Words and images of belief matter in our lives. Do you have a favorite verse or hymn that stays with you in times of grief or joy?
Elizabeth Hunter is editor of Gather magazine. This piece first ran in the September 2017 issue of Gather.
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