Travels with my mother XVIII: Remembering the good

This is the eighteenth in my series called Travels with my Mother. If you’ve not read the first in the series, you might wish to have a look at that one as it gives the context behind these posts.

Recently I showed Mum several of her old school reports from high schools she attended during WWII, when her father was away on overseas service with the Army. There was a clue on two of them which told me where Mum was living and what was happening in her life at that time.

‘See here, Mum, where the parent’s signature goes?’ I pointed at the faded handwriting. ‘These two were signed by your grandmother. Your mum had died by this time and you were living with her mother.’

Mum’s mother died in 1942 from a long illness and her three children were sent to live with different families because their father was not granted permission to return home from active service.

Mum showed no recognition at her grandmother’s name or even at what must have been a traumatic time in her young life.

I tried again: ‘Your grandmother was married to Bob then; her second husband. You always said you liked Bob; though not your grandmother so much. But you really liked Bob.’

At that name, a warm smile lit up Mum’s face. ‘Bob was kind,’ she nodded.
I said, ‘Do you remember why you didn’t like your grandma?’

Mum stared into space for a while before shaking her head. ‘I don’t remember her. Just Bob. He was lovely.’

This exchange left me wondering: was this another of dementia’s strange gifts: the expunging of difficult times and people, leaving only the good? Perhaps it was a transient phase of the disease. If so, at least it offered my mother the opportunity to recall someone whom she had loved and who had offered her a kindly presence at a difficult time.

If only we could all remember the good a little more and leave behind those painful, unwanted or distressing recollections, at least for a time.

#travelswithmymother