The Fear is palpable a the Memory Center.  Our sunny patient who was usually smiling and cute is getting tired.  The hailstorms that inhabit her brain are crashing loudly against her skull now.  Everyday I see them ravishing her soul and taking the life from her young body.  She is getting tired of holding her head up through the storm.  She is bending.

   The anger is coming out in another patient.  Everything was smiles and fun before but now it is getting serious.  She stares out into a world gone mad and sees the confusion as something to be angry about.  She sees the world crumbling all around her and she is digging in her heels to try and stop the slide.  But just like being in quicksand she has no control.  She is losing her mind and the terror of that is overwhelming.

   One fellow sits with his head in his hands.  It is like he wants to take it off and put it in his lap for awhile.  Annoyed that it has to exist on his neck as it has outlived its functions. " I am so confused."   OCD and Memory Loss are his plague.  He wants confirmation on everything he does.  "Should I eat this carrot?"  "This one or that one?"  "

I don't know just eat your carrots...."  That is what we want to say but it doesn't work.  Just confirm positively that yes, that is the correct carrot. Again and Again and Again. I threw two uneaten lunchs away.  Forgetting how to eat.  Tragic.  So life becomes just hugs and hand shakes.  I made him smile today and that made my day.   It is the little things....                       

   One fellow is still happy.  He conducts orchestras and jumps up at patriotic songs.  He waves his hat over the crowd and cheers for all that is musical and right with the world.  He has learned to listen to us and when he gets too loud he will calm down if we say so.  He still remembers his mannars.  He is staying out of trouble.  He makes less and less sense when he talks.

   Several people cannot talk.  They say a few odd things and smile.  They get very mad sometimes.   The space around them becomes sacred and they protect it from intruders.  They think that they are free but they are more restricted everyday and have to exist in a small amount of space even tho their minds are running free all over the universe.  They crave a sane touch to help them sort things out but they push it away too.  Two fellows spend the day on opposite sides of the room.  They used to be friends but they have forgotten about that now.

    We help each other at the Memory Center.  The ones who are a little more with it notice the others and see themselves as the saner ones and then they descend and they are the ones that need help and the new ones come in and help them.  When you know all the answers to the word game questions you are proud.  But then you start to hang your head and let the others answer.  You can hear them but the answers get further and further away.  You hold your head.  Holding on to something. Anything.  I can see the decline.  The descent.  

   A plug is pulled and the joy goes out.  The light about a person is dimmed and then gone.  There are tiny things that remain.  It is my job to find that and turn it on for even a brief moment.  Music helps.  I remember one lady from my first job long ago who had a stoke and could not speak but she could sing "Good Night Irene."  and another person who had not spoken in years who mouthed the words to the Lord's Prayer.  They are in there.  

   I am in my body.  I try to find out who I am but I get lost sometimes too.  The truths are too hard to bear and no one seems to understand.  But I can still see ME.  My head hasn't exploded yet. My perceptions of time and space seem intact.  My heart aches tho.