I SOMETIMES LIVE in a small community of SE Alaska. I used to come up here for work; now I come for friendship and the solidarity of divergent people. Polarized politics, different work ethics, varied lifestyles, religious disparities, over-the-top personalities. These things don't matter between us. The greater good prevails. And it’s the perfect place for a woman whose mother has early stages of dementia.
I’ll call the mother Sally. She’s my friend. We see each other at morning coffee and sometimes senior lunch. The other day at lunch I had my phone out, texting back and forth with someone else over when I might stop by afterward. It sat between Sally and I. But when I went to get up, it was gone. “Hey, anyone seen my phone?"
I’d been warned. Once Sally tried to take a whole stack of menus from the Sweet Tooth. One day I watched her try to tuck a spoon from the Smoothies shop into her pocket book. Another time, she picked up a plastic cup. “You can leave that here,” her daughter said when she came to pick Sally up, no big deal, just taking it from her hand and putting it back on the table. I can’t imagine what life would be like for Sally in the Lower 48. Would someone try to have her arrested?
Up here, though, she’s safe. Her daughter, I’ll call her Nora, can drop Sally off and go to work, and let the rest of us manage the complexities for a bit.
But what was I to do about my phone?
The first step was to confirm where it was.
“Does anyone have a phone I can use to ring myself?” I asked the group.
No one.
I went into the kitchen. “Renata? Do you have your phone?”
“I do.”
“Can you call me? I think my phone’s in Sally’s pocket.”
“Ahh…” A knowing look came into her eye.
My phone answered from where I thought it would. Deb and Wilma and I pretended to try and track the sound. I was hoping Sally would figure it out; she didn’t have a clue. Finally Deb said, “Sally! It’s in your pocket!”
Puzzled, Sally put in her hand and pulled out my phone. She was flummoxed. I put my arm around her. We all laughed and gave her a smile, but Sally began to get agitated and walked about, retreating into herself. I finally had to get her and bring her back to the table. “Sit ye doon,” I said, bringing out a poor imitation of my mother's favorite Scottish idiom. We bantered back and forth. She calmed down. Then she leaned toward me and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I thought my heart would break.
We live hard lives, but I can’t imagine a harder one than that of dementia. My mother died of it. I've see it in others. It’s a cruel disease that steals us from ourselves and we find other peoples' phones in our pockets. But where I sometimes live, there is an eclectic collection of people who help bring Sally back to herself whenever she's confronted with that "dark someone else" who is determined to take over. And sadly someday will.
