Every Sunday my family meets up at my parent's house; three generations of Prasad's eating, laughing, and enjoying life. As I watch our family interact, I can't help but notice how similar my aging father acts to my nine month old niece. His condition is Alzheimer's, hers is youth. Anyone that has been around Alzheimer's knows about the degeneration of the inflicted' mind, and childlike behavior that ensues. I go for walks with my father, and I answer the same question 20 times during the 30 minute walk. "Anita when are you getting married?" Soon Dad. I babysit Rekha, and I tell her not to put the remote control in her mouth 20 times. The same amount of patience, attention, and love is required in both settings.
In my parent's home, I'm constantly reminded of time. In this world, time is the only constant, everything else is changing. Time continues to move forward into the infinite, there is no stopping or rewinding it. We all age in the same increments, one year at a time. Though I think age has the ability to come full circle. A 65 year old, can behave like a nine month old. I'm beginning to understand that the only place that time has the ability to fast forward into the future, or rewind into the past is in our heads. I'm watching my Father revert to his village Hindi, a language he hasn't spoken in over 50 years, and I can see that he has gone back in time, to live in a different point in his life. I have heard of cases in Alzheimer's where the patient thinks he/she is 18 again, and decides to behave in that manner. Maybe there such a thing as time travel.
Though scientifically there is no method of physically going back in time, or jumping into the future, I have learned that you can make time stand still. When you are living in the moment, time will stand still...
1 comment:
Nature has taken care of the fact that the full implication of life comes to us gradually as we grow up and have acquired enough experience to cope with the shocks which we face at a later time. Your father is very fortunate to be surrounded by family members who have immense love and regard for him. It is also good that with the medical facilities available to him, he is able to communicate with you. My mother suffered a much severe degree of Alzheimer and lost her power of speech, was bed ridden and unable to eat on her own for last ten years of her life. When Sudheer was 3 year old, he was fascinated by the tattoo on her hand and would ask many questions about it again and again as children do. A year before her death when Sudheer visited us, he held her hand and suddenly she folded up her sleeves to show the tattoo and there was immense happiness on her face. All of us in the family, who happened to watch this simple act, got very excited as people do when their child takes first few steps or utters the first words.
My father took care of my mother very well and we had very minor roles to watch from the fringes. All of a sudden my father, who was very fit physically, was diagnosed with the cancer of glands and had to undergo chemotherapy. I was more attached to my mother, since I lived under her affectionate care in a joint family till I was 11 and we moved to join my father for my education. As a child I had a wish that my mother should never be away from me but when my father became ill I started secretly praying that my mother should die before my father. I had a peculiar state of mind. I used to think that if my father dies before her, he would go with a tremendous sense of anxiety about the amount of care and attention she would get in her absence. It so happened that my father got reasonably cured to be on his feet and was able to look after her again. She died 6 months before him.
The fresco in Buddha temple at Sarnath depicts four encounters that made Prince Siddarth to renounce worldly pleasure to seek truth and become Buddha. These sights were: An old person, A diseased person, A dead person and A monk. Siddhartha thought that he would be able to serve humanity better by becoming a monk. One can do the same by leading an ordinary life where challenges are much more than in a monk’s life. So in the teachings of Buddha and also in Geeta we are advised to do our duties without too much attachment to the results that we get in return. When we are very young, these things appear as utopian but with experience we learn the truth, if we are vigilant. Your definition of our mind’s ability of going back and forth in time is very apt. An old person has in him a child and an young person at the same time and one needs to be very experienced to realize this fact and do the needful
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