One shoulder slides up, the other one down. Fingers drum lightly along the table top. Boots tap against the floor.
“Hmmm, that’s a very good beat, isn’t it,” says my mother, making more of a statement than asking a question. “I never could dance,” she tells me as she continues to move her shoulders to the beat. “Your father could dance though. He took dance lessons.”
One shoulder slides up, the other one down. Fingers drum lightly along the table top. Boots tap against the floor.
That’s a very good beat, isn’t it,” says my mother again.”I never could dance. Your father could though. He took dance lessons.”
My mother repeats herself. It’s the Alzheimer’s talking.
We’re at my sister Cathy’s 60th birthday party. You may have noticed the bobbing headbands! Cathy wanted a dance party and that’s exactly what she got. All four of her sisters made it to the party and none of us wasted a moment getting out onto the dance floor. It’s in our blood. But is it our father’s or our mother’s?
The music stops, and my niece Jessica announces a birthday game. She hands each guest a sheet of paper with questions about her mother. The person with the highest number of correct answers wins.
Where was Cathy born? How many schools did she attend? Name a country she has lived other than the United States. If she could do anything she wanted, what would it be? What was the first mountain she climbed and with whom?
No one would expect her mother to know all the answers, but she was lost with the first question. “Where was Cathy born?” she asked. “I can’t remember, can you?”
As I write these words, tears are rolling down my cheeks. But at the moment it is happening, you can’t cry, and you can’t say things like, “Don’t you remember? She was born in Virginia.”
You just try to enter her world and help her come up with the answer.
I teasingly accused my nephew Sam of cheating when he plunked down next to his Grammie and started comparing notes. Whether he realized it or not, for those few moments they were simply partners in crime, solving a mystery together.
The game ended, and a friend of Cathy’s took the prize.
On went the music and up went my mother’s shoulder. Only this time my sister Mary said, “Come on, Mom, let’s dance.”
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