Mask

A former priest of mine once said that when people in an old folks home have their mind start to go, you see the true them.  They forget who you are and maybe who they are.  They become wicked and their speech becomes aggressive and crass because the mask falls off.  They have no more pretenses.  This bothered me, and it is not how I see it at all.  Their mind is going and they are not in control anymore.  This isn't who they really are, minus the inhibitions.  This is who they aren't, like a junkie who's high on something.  It isn't them, it's who they aren't.  They may have some memories.  But they're trapped inside this diseased body.  We're all exposed to things that we are not as we go though life.  Expelling those things when we are demented, or regurgitating those things when we are ill does not make the sick person expose who they really are.  A sick animal is pain will bite the master it loves too.  This is not the dog that loved, but the sickness that bites.

I always thought that when I knew it was coming, I would somehow write my wife and daughter's names somewhere, so that I wouldn't forget, not so I would remember, but so that I would not hurt them.  The mind going is a terrible thing to those who have to watch it.  I could be there now.  If you were in a home with dementia, you could think it's now and never no that it wasn't.  You could be there now, no?