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Thursday April 5, 2007

When memories fade, it’s hard to be the one who remembers

by dan pine
staff writer

Every night is like the one before. My girlfriend, Robyn, and I cook dinner, and then Rex, her father, joins us at the table in our cozy Albany home. We raise our glasses together with a hearty “Cheers!”

Robyn then explains to Rex once again: “I am your daughter. This is my boyfriend. You live here, Daddy.”

Rex has dementia and has been unable to live on his own for years. For him, life is an inverse version of “Groundhog Day.” Each day is different and he has to start from scratch.

Until last October, Robyn’s sisters in Los Angeles had been taking care of him. But after five years, they needed a break. Now it’s Robyn’s turn. Though we knew that Rex moving in would turn our lives upside-down, we barely debated the prospect. Of course we had to take him in.

At 85, Rex is in good physical shape. With his snow-white beard, ruddy complexion and twinkly eyes, Rex looks like Santa Claus after a few weeks at Club Med. But that’s only on the surface.

The most shocking thing about Rex’s condition is how much it erased his memory, short term and long term. He doesn’t know his children or grandchildren, he doesn’t know where he is, or even, it sometimes seems, who he is.

Rex designed several important Jewish buildings in Southern California, including Sinai Temple in Westwood, parts of the University of Judaism master plan and the beautiful House of the Book Chapel at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. He also designed the famous Friars Club building in Beverly Hills.

He doesn’t remember any of this.

If you meet him, you might have a pleasant conversation. But duck out for 10 minutes, and when you return it’s as if he had never met you.

For me, having Rex around reinforces how fundamental memory is to our lives. In truth, it is our lives. Everything that came before provides the scaffolding that makes us who and what we are. Lose that, you have lost nearly everything.

In Judaism, memory –– zichronot –– is of incalculable importance. “We’re a people of memory,” said Bruce Feldstein, director of the Jewish Chaplaincy at Stanford University Medical Center. “It’s what kept us alive. When we talk about l’dor va dor [from generation to generation], one of the things that helps allow those chains to be created is memory.”

Feldstein has worked with many families facing the calamity of dementia. His advice, beyond seeking as much professional help as possible, takes on a spiritual dimension. Having lost one’s memory, he says, “we live in the moment and learn to find appreciation in new ways. It could be something as simple as a smile or a touch. We can choose to see things with new eyes and discover new worlds.”

That’s just what Robyn tries to do with Rex. Watching a movie together, enjoying the sunshine on a weekend morning, sharing a cup of coffee or a bowl of fruit. She creates these little moments for the two of them every day. The disappointments and conflicts from years past are forgotten — utterly forgotten — as they discover new worlds.

Sometimes it seems so heartbreaking, I don’t know how Robyn goes on. But what option does she have?

Every morning she starts over, silently invoking the Fifth Commandment –– kibud av va’em (honoring father and mother) –– as she faces another 36-hour day.

Rex is not my father. I don’t have the same emotional investment as Robyn. I see my main job as supporting her. From the sidelines, though, I have a good vantage point to watch her carry out “love’s austere and lonely offices,” as Robert Hayden put it in his poem, “Those Winter Sundays.”

It’s a daily struggle. But that reminds me of something else Bruce Feldstein told me, recounting the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel of God. “At the end,” Bruce said, “the angel tells Jacob he has to go. And Jacob says, ‘OK, but you can’t go until you give me a blessing.’ And he receives it. This tells me we can also take the blessing that comes with struggle.”

I can’t tell if Robyn has received her blessing. Perhaps I will look for it tonight, at the dinner table, when, yet again, she says to Rex, “I am your daughter.”

Dan Pinedan@jweekly.com.

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