Yesterday my mother
didn’t recognise herself in the mirror.
I found her smiling
and nodding politely at her reflection. Then she whispered conspiratorially, ‘Who
is that woman?’, as if we were at a drinks party and she had simply forgotten the
name of an acquaintance across the room.
Through the looking
glass, I look back.
Back to my mother’s
mother who also had Alzheimer’s. As a child I was immensely amused, and then strangely
frightened, when she would grab me with her bony hands and demand to know who
the lady in the mirror was. ‘She
keeps staring at me!’. Very quickly her reflection began to torment her. Why wouldn’t
the woman say hello? Why was she so rude and arrogant, refusing to answer any
questions? Who did she think she
was?
Who did she think she was?
Back through the
looking glass I stand next to my mother and side-by-side we look at our faces
together. So similar. ‘You look just like
your mother!’. Who doesn’t know what she looks like anymore. So I remind
her – that’s you! Oh yes, so it is, she laughs. She has not taken against
herself yet.
A reverse Dorian Grey.
The lady in the mirror gets older, while she feels younger. Fading memory
erasing old age, middle age, parenthood, marriage, travel and leaving only
youth. She just cannot believe the
lady staring back at her is her. But she’s so old! I am not that old! I am only
15, or perhaps 20… maybe more.
Cover all the mirrors.
Stop all the clocks. Time is reversing.
I stare hard at my refection.
Scrutinising my features. Will I ever not know myself? But the harder I stare
the more my features recede, and I see my mother staring back at me. But not really
staring anymore. Sometimes behind her eyes the intention is gone, she is simply looking. Avoiding my gaze.
I see us all in three dimensions.
Looking through the window at the lady outside, checking her reflection in the
glass. She cannot see us. We look straight into her eyes. She doesn’t recognise
us.
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