Auntie M's Glorious New Life

Auntie M has always been an avid reader. Books are what she had the most of in her last tiny apartment. She loved to read love stories, mysteries, biographies, magazines, and stuff she found on her computer. She kept files of articles, jokes and emails. She loved cookbooks and was a fantastic cook. She loved a good person to person story and could remember many to retell. As she grew older she loved talking about her youth with great detail, composing stories of her own. She was active in her involvement with reading, her computer and talking to friends and family on the phone and in person. She was alone in her apartment but filled her time with reading, socializing and communicating.
About a year ago, at age 86, she began to slow down in her physical abilities - driving, walking, shopping became increasingly difficult. Her doctors could not pinpoint any specific reasons, but she steadily became weaker and weaker. She was frustrated that she couldn't do what she could before. She soon needed someone to help her at home each day, then after a few emergency room visits, it was obvious that she needed more help. From her last hospital stay she moved into a nursing home. She wasn't happy about this at all; for the first few weeks she physically and verbally fought against all attempts by staff to give her care. At last she began to settle in and grudgingly accepted attention from all these new people. When we would visit we listened to her laments about the quality of life she now was experiencing. We began to dread visiting this sad, changed Auntie M. that we couldn't make happier, but we continued to make visits often. Then we began to notice that she began her escape from her predicament by inventing excursions and visits from long dead family members. She would tell us that her mama was there now taking care of her and she felt better about being there. Her mama visited her every day she said and made sure she was well taken care of. She was very certain about this and we didn't dispute her.
When we were about to make another trip to Paris in March to see her, I called her to let her know that we were coming. She said "Be sure to get here before Sunday because I'm going to die that day." We sure will I told her. When we did see her that Sunday (and she was still with us), she said "They've already planned my service for this afternoon and I can't change the plans." "Okey-dokey" we said. Life continued, much to her surprise, and that was the last of the predictions about
the day of dying for her.
The next visit was a combination of Auntie M being here with us and lucid, asking about family, griping about the food, wishing she was back at her apartment, then seamlessly leaving the here and now and very convincingly telling us about moves she had made to several different rooms, meals served at midnight and three pm, and various wild tales about her staff who was taking care of her. We could see that she believed she was telling us the truth. This is what she perceived, no question about it.
We realized that dementia was taking over her imaginative inner life, and it has turned out to not be so bad. The more time that has passed, the better her "life" as she sees it has become. Our visit this weekend was delightful. When we arrived and woke her, she said "Where's Jean? She was right here on my bed with me; she must've fallen on the floor!" We checked and no Jean on the floor. She was so happy to see us and chatted cheerfully with each of us and even gave Brei some Life Advice on college. Then she told us that she could travel and not leave her bed. She goes everywhere, flying and floating in her cozy bed, comfy and content. All the rooms she visits have the picture of her and me on the wall: "we must be very popular!" she says. She told us she visited her old apartment and that it's really cute now; that it's been remodeled and looks very nice. She says she has made lots of friends here where she lives now. She names them for us and says they are in charge of making sure she doesn't lose too much weight. (I hope that part is true). She whispers to John to "count her money" and make sure she doesn't run out. She tells me I look just like my cousin Karen. She knows all of us and is happy we're here with her. We take a photo of her with all of us around her. She tells me to send it here and not to her old apartment so I guess she knows this is her home now. She'll have someone put the picture on the wall next to the other one, and both will be in all the rooms she flies away to visit.
How comforting to us that Auntie M has such a satisfying new life. Maybe she purposely invented it as a defense against her own new reality. Maybe she could invent it because of her imagination, her sharp intelligence, her life long love of reading about and visualizing others' lives. She escaped over and over again through her books, and now she's escaping inside her head with her own tales of adventures. She could have suffered a sad regret for a long time, but not for invincible Auntie M. I hope her travels never end and she has much, much more to tell us.