I have several
parishioners who are losing their minds. I know that may not be the
politically correct way to put it, but I can’t think of a more apt
description. They are mentally not who they were when I met them.
They’re forgetful or confused or angry or lost. They are all in their
eighties, although I know plenty of people that age or older who are fine.
I am troubled by the changes or even loss of personality in these people
who have become so dear to me over the almost 11 years that I have known them.
There is one woman who
is so afraid of what her memory loss means that she has pushed everyone in her
family away. She needs to be in control of everything – to the point that
she wouldn't let them take her out to lunch on Mother’s Day but
insisted that she follow her routine and have a sandwich at the kitchen table
while they weren't allowed to vacuum or do anything that might make
her home cleaner or more livable.
There is another woman who
is always delighted to have me visit, but is unable to carry on a conversation
beyond expressing her delight that I am there. We've had
numerous fascinating talks over the years about the development of the local
area in her lifetime and I had hoped to someday film or record her telling
them, but she is no longer able to string coherent thoughts together, much less
share them in any meaningful way.
Then there’s the
sweetest gentleman who is also happy to see me, but wonders what method of
transportation I took to get to him – train, bus, or plane – as he’s convinced
he’s in his summer cabin three states away.
There are others in my
congregation who are also struggling with memory issues; these are just three
examples of people who once were vibrant and productive in the church, in their
workplaces, in their family lives, who now are bare shadows of who they once
were. It really makes me wonder what it is that makes us who we are, what
makes us us?
We have lots of
conversations in the church about the soul: who has one, who owns it, what
happens to it when we die. But I am wondering what happens to it while
we’re alive. If we are no longer able to remember who we are, are we
ourselves?
This question has been
raised in several ways, one of the most compelling of which was in the
short-lived television show “Dollhouse.” The crux of the
philosophical debate in that fictional context was in the technological ability
to strip an individual’s personality and save it to a hard drive, then download
other personalities into the brain pan for corporate gain. People in the
show who've been “wiped” do have a vestigial personality, but it
is simple and malleable. One of the taglines for the show was “you can
wipe away a memory, but can you wipe away a soul?”
Boyd (Harry Lennix) is Echo's
(Eliza Dushku) handler, while
Topher (Fran Kranz) is the
brilliant mind who makes stripping
hers possible. (Photo credit: IMDb)
What exactly is the soul? If it is the
essence of what makes us who we are, is what we remember important? I
first pondered this about 10 years ago as I watched the documentary “Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter.”
That Oscar-nominated film by Deborah Hoffman shows her
struggle with the loss of relationship with her mother, Doris .
Not because she and her mother have had a falling out, but because Alzheimer’s
takes Doris ’s
memory away. She no longer recognizes Deborah ,
and even though Doris is mostly happy in her
minimized condition, Deborah is – understandably –
not.
I have no answer for
these questions, only sadness. As I watch person after person that I know
become something not less but definitely other than what he or she has been to
me, I wonder whether a long life without the connections that make that life
meaningful is worth living. Do I wish to exist beyond my ability to
remember those I love and the experiences that have given my life purpose and
direction? All I know is that I will continue to love these people as
they are now, as well as how they have been, in hopes that it is enough.
