The Sound of Memory: a short story by Kody Boye
In which a young woman grapples with her grandmother's mental decline
Her hands are trembling.
This is not an uncommon thing, at least, not anymore. Not since last Christmas. The doctor’s visit. The diagnosis of Lewy body dementia. To see them shake in this manner is like listening to the sound of some unknown drum—sometimes sporadic, but most oftentimes ceaseless. Sometimes, she can barely control them.
But I know that a part of her is still there.
As I stand here, in the threshold to the sitting room, looking in on one of the few people who have been with me throughout almost every step in my life, I try my hardest to contain my emotions, but find that I almost cannot.
My grandmother is deteriorating before my eyes.
It takes all I can do to keep it together.
Most days, she remains in the sitting room, looking out at the garden. She prefers the birds and the bees, the aimless movements of the trees. Squirrels delight her, and she is always in awe of the flowers, which are blooming brightly on this fine spring day. Her eyes dart rapidly from figure to figure, place to place, and though most would find her actions befitting of a sharp mind, the truth is that the cognitive decline is accelerating at a pace we cannot anticipate.
My mother has asked me to pray. My father has warned me of the inevitable.
And yet I still watch, I think, in wonder.
The sound of my breath catching causes my grandmother’s eyes to stop searching. For her head to slowly turn. For her gaze to finally meet mine. She says, “Hello.”
“Hello,” I say.
“I’m… I’m sorry. I… I didn’t see you there.”
“It’s okay,” I offer, before taking a step forward. “May I… may I come in?”
Rather than respond, my grandmother turns her head to consider the garden once more, because this too is not uncommon. The doctors have described it to us as “pervasive memory loss,” which, though not uncommon for those suffering dementia, still disarms me.
My grandmother was once the sharpest person alive, with quick wit and a quirky sense of humor. Now, she is but a shell of herself.
Why? I have questioned more than once. Why did this have to happen to you?
I have struggled to make sense of this cruel and unfortunate aspect of life since her diagnosis, yet no matter how hard I try to analyze it, or fathom the depths of despair her passing will bring, I know I will never find any answers. Dementia, the doctors have said, is just sometimes a part of life.
I struggle not to cry in her presence—mostly because Mom has told me not to, and Dad has said that it will only make her confused, cause her grief. For this reason, I swallow the lump in my throat, and ask, “Do you want to listen to a song?”
“A… song,” my grandmother says, in that distant, faraway voice of hers. She doesn’t turn her head. She barely moves her eyes from where they remain fixed on a bird bathing in a basin. However, when she does speak, it’s to say, “A… a song.”
“Yes. A song.”
“A song,” she says.
I am unsure if she is truly capable of articulating that I am asking her for permission. I draw my cell phone from my pocket, and browse through my apps until I finally come across the music player on my device.
Not long after, I press play, and let the song begin.
The preamble of silence is deafening, the soft whisper of someone breathing on the live recording enough to raise the hair along the back of my neck. Yet, when the first key is struck, it is like something has activated inside my grandmother’s brain. This is especially true as the pianist begins to play the piano. At this time, my grandmother’s eyes dilate. Her breath catches. Her fixed look is released, much like the snap of a chain link being cut from its many rungs.
Then, a moment later, she turns her head to face me. “Carrie,” she says.
“Yes, Grandma,” I say, in a voice that I hope is as strong as I would like it to be. “I’m here.”
She extends a trembling hand toward me, and I take hold of her palm, which is so frail and small, her skin so thin I’m afraid it might tear. I allow her to guide me forward with a gentle brush of her thumb, and come to stand beside her as she returns her gaze to look outside.
“It’s beautiful,” I say as I gaze upon the birds alighting on the bath in the garden.
“There’s so many,” my grandmother says. “So many colors.”
“There is,” I say.
I attempt to hold my hand steady, if only to still the tremors, but know that doing so is likely only to cause her harm. I allow myself to ride these emotions, these excessive waves, all while I gaze out the full-length windows that span from floor to ceiling.
Standing here, in the sitting room that has been so special but has become more so since winter, I can still recall one of my earliest memories as a child—when, upon waking from a late dream, I’d stumbled in here, crying my eyes out, holding a stuffed bear in one hand.
She’d asked, What’s wrong?
While I’d replied, I had a dream.
What kind of dream? she’d asked.
A dream where you were gone, I’d said.
She’d looked upon me with kind eyes, her mouth slightly agape. Then she’d said, Come here, and gestured for me to come stand at her side. Do you remember what I told you? she had asked. About what we do when we have bad dreams?
We tell ourselves that they aren’t real, I had replied, that they’re only dreams that can’t hurt us.
Exactly, she’d said. She’d taken hold of my hand, then; and though trembling, she’d welcomed me at her side, and held me close in the twilight hours of the morning.
It is like this now, in a way—a moment that has come full circle in many respects. While she sits here, gazing out the window, very much like the child who had expected comfort, I am like her grandmother seeking to offer peace at a time when there seems to be none.
At her last appointment, the doctors had told us that my grandmother would likely not live much longer. They’d determined this by a scan of her brain, the state of her being. They’d told us that, if we were lucky, we’d make it to Christmas, maybe New Year’s at most. But here, at the mid-point of April, she still sits, looking on at the birds, and the bees, and everything that could possibly be.
“Grandma?” I ask her as the song continues to play.
“Yes?” she asks, in that same faraway voice.
I’m unsure what to say, especially as the pianist begins to play the final lines. As a result, I simply remain quiet, and gently squeeze her hand.
“I remember,” she says, suddenly, without being prompted.
“Remember what, Grandma?” I ask, before tilting my eyes down to look at her.
My grandmother doesn’t respond. She simply continues to look out the window.
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