A place of certainty | Ned BatchelderA place of certainty<br>My mother is 86, and she is declining. Things that used to be easy for her<br>now seem completely foreign. She was a programmer, writing software before I<br>could read, so it is very strange to see her like this.<br>She no longer uses a computer. If I mention some photos I found online, she<br>asks if there’s any way she can see them, as if she has never used the internet.<br>This is a new reality for me, but is easier than a year or two ago when she<br>still tried to be constantly online. As things got more confusing for her, she<br>struggled and complained "the computer is haunted." Now she doesn’t have the<br>computer as a source of friction, but also not as a center of activity.<br>In many ways, she is following a similar path to her own mother, my<br>Grandma O. Like her, my mom is accepting<br>the changes in her relationship to the world. She is able to laugh at it a<br>bit. But it will still be difficult, especially because we know it is a<br>progression that is not going to get better and will very likely get worse.<br>The new her is very different from the original her. She was not timid. She<br>came out as gay in the mid ‘70s and ran a feminist<br>bookstore. She worked as a programmer. She got a PhD in computational<br>linguistics just because she was interested in the topic. These were the things<br>I was used to hearing about from her. She never lacked for enthusiasms, projects<br>and accomplishments.<br>She was always energetic and feisty, ready to engage in debate. This picture<br>does a good job capturing the spirit of many of our interactions in the<br>past:
Now she is mild and somewhat resigned. She says things like, "I don’t think<br>much anymore." I know there are other ways this could go. Some people get very<br>angry as their abilities fade. In that sense, this is a good trajectory, but I<br>am still sad to see her shrink.<br>Last week we had a family gathering at my sister’s house, the usual location<br>for these big events. My mom has been there many times. But now she didn’t<br>recognize it. I sat with my mom and sister over lunch. They were discussing the<br>dining room we were in. It wasn’t familiar to my mom. She wasn’t upset about it,<br>just looked around and said, "no, I don’t remember this."<br>My mom was enjoying her salad, but eating it with her hands. I pointed to<br>the fork on her plate and asked, "You don’t like the fork?" She looked at it as<br>if it was some unimportant detail of the tablecloth, and kept eating with her<br>hands. She wasn’t bothered, just calmly proceeded in her way.<br>At the end of the party, my mom and her wife Fumiko were getting ready to go.<br>Fumiko had scheduled a ride-share car, so we went out to the street to wait for<br>it. We brought out a chair for my mom to sit. The time for the car came and<br>went, but no car arrived. There were five of us out there: me, my sister and<br>brother, my mother and Fumiko. My brother and Fumiko were trying to figure out<br>where the car was. They were looking through the app for information. They<br>re-read the email confirming the scheduled ride. Should we keep waiting? We<br>could request a new ride. Would we be charged for the missed scheduled ride? It<br>was a whole thing, lots of discussion and questions.<br>In the middle of this, without warning, my mom tried unsteadily to get up<br>from her chair. Two of us quickly intercepted her. The uneven pavement seemed<br>particularly treacherous for her. We supported her arms to keep her steady.<br>"Mom, where are you trying to go?"<br>"I want a place of certainty. This place seems very uncertain."<br>She was right: out there on the sidewalk we were all uncertain. But I have to<br>wonder if she was also talking about her larger experience in a world that is<br>less and less understandable for her.
In the back of my mind, I wonder what my own future holds. But that is<br>decades away, and my mother’s situation is now. I don’t know what her next<br>steps down will be like. She has already changed a great deal in the last<br>year.<br>I think we would all like a place of certainty. I know I would, but I also<br>know I am not going to get it soon.
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