Chapter 11 - THINGS THAT ARE STILL HAROLD
The list was twenty items.
He drinks coffee colder now.
He laughs when he cannot find words.
He wants music louder.
He hates neckties.
He likes westerns now.
He says “blue” when he means “green” sometimes.
He still squeezes my hand twice before sleep.
Claire handed the page to Margaret.
“You wrote this.”
Margaret stared.
Then cried.
She had written it after a caregiver-support group.
The facilitator asked spouses to separate:
loss
from
change.
Margaret tried.
For a while.
Then Harold declined later.
More fatigue.
More language loss.
Less independence.
Margaret returned to drills.
Why forget the better lesson?
Because fear is repetitive.
It does not care what you learned last time.
Then Margaret read the list aloud.
“He liked westerns after the stroke.”
Claire smiled.
“He hated them before.”
“I thought it was brain damage.”
“Maybe he just had terrible taste.”
Margaret laughed through tears.
Then:
“He was still Harold.”
“Yes.”
Then Margaret said:
“And Emily is still Emily.”
Claire nodded.
Then corrected:
“Emily is Emily. We don’t need ‘still.’”
Margaret looked at her.
That was even better.
Then Emily joined the next session.
Margaret showed her Harold’s list.
Emily laughed at:
blue means green.
Then asked:
“Did Grandpa know you wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Margaret smiled.
“He added one.”
What?
STILL BETTER LOOKING THAN SAM.
Sam was his brother.
Emily laughed so hard she had to lie back.
Then something shifted.
Harold became:
a person,
not a cautionary tale.
Margaret had been using his stroke as a map for Emily.
Now his memory became:
family story.
Different.
Then Emily asked:
“Can I make a list?”
Margaret tensed.
Not another assessment.
Emily wrote:
THINGS I DO NOW.
Cookie dough.
Robotics.
Hate dance.
Need naps sometimes.
Forget names sometimes.
Still hate peas.
Like scary books now.
Want blue walls.
Then:
NOT A TEST.
Everyone laughed.
Claire taped it inside Emily’s closet.
Emily later took it down.
Why?
“Because I might change.”
Exactly.
No fixed identity document.
Then Margaret’s supervised visits began.
Thirty minutes.
Claire present.
No questions about:
old memories.
At first Margaret overcorrected.
She avoided saying:
remember.
Conversation became stiff.
Emily noticed.
“You can ask if I remember something.”
Margaret looked surprised.
“It’s not illegal.”
“Then what’s the rule?”
“Don’t make it a test.”
Nuance.
Then Margaret said:
“Do you remember the bakery with the giant cinnamon rolls?”
Emily thought.
“No.”
Margaret waited.
“Want the story?”
“Yes.”
Margaret told it.
Emily laughed.
Then said:
“I wish I remembered.”
Margaret answered:
“Me too.”
No correction.
No panic.
They could grieve a missing memory without treating Emily as missing.
Then another medical scan approached.
Stable surveillance.
Everyone became tense.
Margaret’s old behavior tempted her:
more questions,
more observation.
Instead she told Claire:
“I’m scared.”
May you like
Direct.
No quiz.
