Forgetful

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I'm completely forgetful," she confessed with a disarming half-smile and the innocent gaze of a completely defenseless being. More defenseless than a small child, because it asks, "What's this, what's this?" to learn and absorb new experiences and information. The frail body of the sick old woman, weak and helpless, lacked the steering wheel of

a normally functioning brain. She kept asking, "Is today Saturday?" (it was Monday), or "Is this the hospital?"—over and over again. She couldn't find her way to the bathroom and back to the room, and she kept asking which bed was hers. During the transfusion, she repeatedly asked, "What's this?"—only to forget.

Why was I writing about her? Because she's my mother's namesake, cruelly torn from life, fully aware of what she was losing and simultaneously unaware of what awaited her...

This old woman-child, who aroused in me a tender pity and moved me to tears with her loss in a world she no longer truly belonged to, was delighted that during a late-night blood transfusion, I kept an eye on her, making sure she didn't move her arm, and spoke to her in a friendly way. I helped her remember how many children she had, their names, and how many each of them had. Memories of childhood and the war also came to mind; a German rhyme or chorus of a song—"Ich habe im hinten Berg mein Herz verloren in einer blauer Sommernacht"—came to mind, repeating it to herself several times with a dreamy expression on her face. This was probably connected to some pleasant

experience. She was happy because I spoke to her like a person, cared for her kindly, rather than commanding her like her otherwise kind and caring daughter.

I had some important questions, I think. So what is the brain, is it really just a computer controlling vital functions and collecting physiological data and information? But it doesn't create a person's personality. When it begins to malfunction, it doesn't mean that a person's personality is erased—or even erased—though it does mean that the person no longer plays their original role in society. However, I am convinced that she would be perfectly capable of establishing contact with animals that would shower her with love. Just as autistic children, through hippotherapy and playing with dogs, increase their capacity for connection with the world around them, so the love of a dog or cat would ease the gradual transition into oblivion and the loss of contact with society, which, with its hustle and bustle, continues to flee from the perceptual capabilities of an old, sick person who has become forgetful, yet remains human.

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I've discovered how to distinguish a sick person from a healthy one in the hospital: The healthy one throws themselves onto the bed like a wild animal, eager to subjugate it to their needs, to make it more welcoming, more homely. They crush the too-firm pillow, kick up

the covers with their feet, and when all this fails, the exhausted person throws themselves haphazardly onto the inhospitable bed and curls up into a ball, freezing in a fetal position, resignedly awaiting the arrival of salutary sleep.

The sick person carefully adjusts themselves to a position on their front that would be least offensive to their sick, aching body, and remains motionless in it, meekly accepting the blessing of sleep. Not so with my Forgetful One. They carefully lower (not place) their almost completely muscleless, flabby body into bed and carefully settle themselves onto

the pillow, as if apologizing for crushing it. Then they slowly sit down again, because something is wrong with their legs, which haven't quite settled into the bed. She helps them with her hands, straightens them, and carefully adjusts the duvet over them, smoothing it. Then she lies back down, not always managing to cover her shoulders. But she doesn't dare move—just a timid, defenseless intruder in a hospital bed. And the poor thing doesn't know that soon she'll forget what her legs and arms are for, forget about eating, excreting,

breathing....