I recently returned to my home in Boulder, CO, after two months in Honolulu, where my sister, Terry, has lived all her adult life. I’ve been spending two of the winter months there for decades, swimming with a mask so I could see the glorious tropical fish. But this was the first time that, returning to my home in Boulder, I could not remember where things were. Especially in the kitchen. I had to pull out every drawer to find the sharp knives.

In the course of the past year, my memory has been growing less reliable. I need to make notes for myself and check my calendar every few hours to make sure I’m not forgetting an appointment.

Memories I have of past years are sharp, but I can’t remember a conversation I had ten minutes ago. Sometimes when I ask a question, people look at me, puzzled, and say, “You just asked me that.”

Is this normal aging? Is there a hereditary factor?

My father was sharp when he passed in his 80’s, but my mother, moving into her 90’s, needed round-the-clock support in her home. Once my sister and I were in her kitchen, frying onions, and she kept asking us what we were cooking. I started giving her different answers.  And she kept asking, “What are you cooking?”

When we took her to a movie, as we walked out, she said, “What did we see in there?”

But she didn’t seem rattled or upset.

At one point, I read about a new treatment for memory loss that was being tested at UCLA and asked if she’d like to be in the program. She shook her head no. “I’m fine the way I am.”

“But there were wonderful times—celebrations, vacations—wouldn’t you like to remember them?”

She shook her head no. “There were unpleasant things too.”  She gave a sharp nod. “I’m fine the way I am.”

After my father died, she started dating men she would meet at her bridge club or square dance class, and if one became sick or died, it wasn’t long before she was dating another man. She had more dates in her 90’s than I’d had at any age.

I lived in L.A. then, and one day when the doorbell rang, I opened the front door and one of her suitors was standing there.

“Hi, Dave,” I said. My two kids had taken a liking to this small, white-haired guy and called him “Cool Dave.” I asked why he’d come and he said, with a puzzled look, “I don’t know.”  We called my mother and she said she’d given him a pot of brisket she’d just cooked to deliver to me.

“I don’t have it,” Dave said.

“Yes, you do! I put it in your car myself,” my mother said.

We walked to his car and there, on the front seat, was the casserole with the brisket.

My mother could always laugh about these lapses. She told me she’d once called a friend and when the woman answered, my mother said, “Who is this?”

“Who are you?” the woman said. “You called me!”
So it went.

We hired two kind, Hispanic women to care for her, so there was always someone in her home. But she never knew their names, and there came a point when we decided to move her to a care home in Honolulu, where Terry could keep tabs on her. She’d lived in California all her life and wouldn’t be able to tolerate the snow in Colorado, where I live.

The day after Terry flew with her to Honolulu and settled her in the care home, with many of her belongings and pictures, I called her and asked, “How do you like Hawaii?”

“I’m not in Hawaii,” she said.

“Where are you?”

“Where I always am. Los Angeles.”

You can imagine now, perhaps, how I feel when I can’t remember something I’ve always known, like, where I keep the sharp knives in the kitchen.

I’ve seen two neurologists—had to wait almost a year for an appointment with either one—and they were sympathetic but had little to offer in the way of treatment or preventing further memory loss.

They told me to use a CPAP device—an air tube that fits over the nose—at night, to make sure I get enough oxygen while sleeping, which is supposed to support my memory.  But I’ve used it for three months and don’t see any effect on my forgetfulness.

Fortunately, my guy, Rio, and my family and friends are rolling with this. But I’m not as accepting or cheerful about it as my mother was.

I mourn the loss of my keen memory. Yet I can still write, and talk, and sing, and laugh, and for this I’m grateful.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Suggestions?