The Watermelon Lady

"They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel." - Carl W. Buechner

My mother doesn't know me. It has been about ten years since she first started to forget who I am but she still used to know me some of the time. I was the first of her daughters to be lost from her memory bank. That seems a bit odd to some people as I am the youngest. I think my sisters used to worry that it hurt my feelings that Mom could remember them but not me. I won't tell you it didn't feel bad but I didn't feel any less loved by her. There is no understanding Alzheimer's. It just so happens the first hole in Mom's brain was in the piece that held me.

Over the course of time, Mom's cognitive function has been in continuous decline. She has been in a nursing home for more than four years now and she doesn't really know my sisters anymore. Nancy goes to the nursing home everyday. On the odd occasion she is rewarded by a smile of recognition from Mom. Cathy has joined me in the hole. When Mom was first in the nursing home we would take her out every Sunday, usually to Cathy's house where we would share a family dinner. It eventually became too much for Mom and outings started to be reserved for holidays and special occasions. This year we didn't bring her home for Christmas, opting for Boxing Day instead when there was far less hoopla to fray her nerves.

On Sunday afternoons my sisters and I usually meet at the nursing home to spend a couple of hours with Mom. At the beginning of this transition from dinners at Cathy's to gatherings at Mom's, I would always bring a picnic, of sorts, with treats that Mom wouldn't normally get in the nursing home - pastries and melon and special drinks. I would bring pretty dishes and placemats and seasonal napkins. Mom loved to examine the pretty things. But times have changed. The simple pleasures of admiring a pretty plate or eating little delicacies are mostly gone. I don't bring pretty dishes or linens anymore. Even interest in eating most of the treats I brought is now gone. The only things that are left are Timbits and watermelon and some days even Timbits don't elicit a response.

Nonethess, there is watermelon. It is the only simple pleasure I still know to give Mom. And I've noticed that though she doesn't know I am Jackie, her youngest child, mother of her only grandson, she does immediately look when I arrive to visit, to see if I've brought watermelon. I've become the watermelon lady in my mother's world.

I'm often asked if it makes me feel there is no point in visiting my Mom anymore - after all she doesn't know me. The truth is, it doesn't really matter if she knows me or not. I know her.