The Sound of Memory

 

I've spent a few years volunteering with people who have complicated symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease. We use childhood photos along with favorite music to create movies, digital frames and photo albums as non-pharmaceutical, palliative care tools. I've witnessed the transformation that Therese Steinhoff illustrates in this essay about her grandmother's Dementia.  Sometimes the answers are complicated, but sometimes the solutions are simple, beautifully simple. -BTH

Last summer my 97 year old grandmother who we call Nana was agitated with the progression of her Dementia. She always said “as long as I have my mind I will be OK.” I think in a way she saw that her mind was slipping into a world of confusion and mashed up memories. She kept talking about the past and the need to get home to her mother, father, husband, and son who had all passed on years ago. She was losing sleep over it. She couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. It was hard for us to witness emotionally and physically as we needed to follow her around in her walker to make sure she didn’t fall.

One afternoon I was alone with Nana and my two year old son.  It was early evening and his fussy time. I was sitting with him on the couch and Nana shuffled over to us in her walker. It had been a long day and regrettably I was frustrated with her. She was constantly repeating “Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Oh Lord help me.”  She was going to the bathroom every five minutes because she had forgotten she had already gone. She was angry with us for telling her to sit down and rest awhile. I had pretty much decided that the most recent mini stroke she had experienced had taken her farther away from us. It felt like she was a boat a drift that we could see from the shoreline but couldn’t call back. So when she said “Can I sit by you” my heart just melted. I had felt bad for having thought that the Nana I knew and loved had left us until I saw a piece of her sweetness emerge with those words.

As she sat next to us on the couch my youngest started to get cranky. As a mother I knew that singing to a crabby toddler usually soothed them. So instinctively I started singing songs to him. He became quiet and listened and to my great surprise Nana also relaxed her body and sat with us without the need to cry out or get up and walk around.

Before I knew it Nana and I were singing Christmas carols in July. I knew that we both loved “O Holy Night” so the two of us were singing it in tandem. Nana even remembered more of the verses than I could remember. She sang loud and clear. She sang with gusto. We sang together for about an hour. I filed that hour away in my mind as one of my favorite memories of my Nana. It went right next to the memories of sleeping over at her house, secretly drinking coffee with milk and sugar, playing bunco together, watching “All My Children,” walking the streets of Rome together, and one of my earliest memories—playing “airplane” together with pictures of food in ads as our meals.

Music was the common thread that held Nana’s life together so it’s no wonder that it now soothes her. She married a Vatican Choir singer who sang every day of their life together—even when he was suffering with Alzheimer’s. She attended Church nearly every day of her life and sang all of the songs. Her son played piano for her. Her house was always filled with music. Even when my grandparents and father would be in the middle of a conversation they would often break into song. I feel like the music of her life was like the yarn that she used to crochet blankets—many different songs came together to wrap around her and comfort her.

So by the end of that hour both my two year old son and 97 year old grandmother were relaxed and ready for dinner. I felt like I had found the key to giving her comfort.

The next day one of her caregivers came to the house and I had Nana sing “O Holy Night” to her. By the end of the song we were both in tears. Her memory was briefly clear and she was present with us.

Music is a powerful thing. No matter what age we are we are soothed by it. It can make us cry, make us laugh, and make us remember. It brought my Nana back to me when I thought she was lost.