What if Alzheimer’s is a natural human phenomenon? What if, rather than a disease, Alzheimer’s is the natural way our brains are formed to protect us from the gradual loss of familial connection or recognition. In college, I read an article about the reason for the pheromonally induced sense of wonder and awe human’s experience at the sight of a sleeping baby. This is the feeling that keeps us from smothering babies in their sleep as harbingers of sleepless nights, pain, and discomfort. What if, as we grow older, our brains’ mechanism is to loosen the bonds that hold us all clinging together. What if, like the natural rebellion humans go through during the teenage years, we find a way to slip from the bondage of relationships that might otherwise keep us in torment at the thought of leaving. How hard would it have been for a close-knit family to float their elderly relatives away in a wave of ice floes if they were still functioning, connected, albeit older people.
What if loss of memory helps reshape our experience in the world, softening the blows, putting into perspective those things that are important while shunting aside the superfluous, minor, painful memories.
What if the repetition we experience in story telling as we get older is the natural pattern in a society of oral history story tellers? It would be natural for the oldest and perhaps the wisest to tell and retell their version of history to reinforce lessons learned.
I am thinking of my ninety-four-year-old father as I ponder these thoughts. Throughout my childhood, he lamented his own upbringing, telling us stories of growing up in a hand-built garage turned house on a two-acre farm in rural Ohio. His father—my grandfather—thought nothing of trading anything he could get his hands on including dogs, horses, and once my father’s new Schwinn bike with raccoon tails on the handlebars. His father was taciturn, quiet, angry, short-tempered, unrelenting, averse to art and idleness as well as wasting money on movies or frivolous endeavors. It was left to my father to entertain his mother, to see that she had company on shopping trips and movie outings. He felt his father neglected his mother terribly, never thinking of her happiness or comfort. Now, however, my father gushes over the beauty and simplicity of his childhood, lauds his father for his craftiness; praises his mother and his parents for giving him the perfect environment in which to grow and prosper. It seems he has forgotten his earlier grim stories, a fact I would never bring up and one for which I am extremely thankful.
What if this final letting go of the past facilitates the ease of transition from one plane of existence to another. What if what we see as illness and disease is simply nature paving our way to the next chapter.
Cave Dweller: Alone in a Social World 