continuum

* Posted in 2009
In my mother's last few years of life, when her Alzheimer's progressed rapidly, I vividly remember driving her around and her pointing to a spot on the inside of my car door. She kept saying something about the face in the door and as soon as I could see what she was talking about, I saw it too. At that moment, I realized that she was seeing faces in the pattern of the leather in the door. And it continued with any sort of design she saw, she would see a face in it. 

She never mentioned this until she was practically incommunicable, until she really began to forget who I was. 

What I never mentioned to anybody, mainly because I just did not think of it as a big deal, was that ever since I was little, I always saw faces in patterns, designs, clouds, in the abstract. Sometimes the faces were realistic, some were cartoon-y, but it was always faces. 

And now, when my mother was far into the depths of her disease, she was seeing what I was seeing. I wish I knew if she always saw faces before she got sick. I wish I knew a lot of things about her before she became a shell of a human. But to me this one particular thing tied us closer than anything. 

And it scared the shit out of me. 

Does this mean that I have the propensity to become like her? That I already am seeing things normally when she was in a demented state? It plagued me, and every time my mind draws a face out of something, I am reminded of this terrifying fear. 

Then one day, when my son was about two, he and I are in our guest bathroom which is wallpapered with some odd floral motif. He is going potty on the toilet and says to me "Mommy, look at the silly face on the wall". I look up and pointed at what I thought he was seeing, which is exactly what I see every time, and he was seeing the exact same thing. And my heart sank at that very moment. 

My son, who has so much ahead of him, so vibrant, who is my world, sees things the way I see it, the way my mother saw it when ill. The gene is passed. It continues. 

I finally talked with my husband about this about a week ago. It takes a lot for me to open up, and this is how long it took for this. He does not see faces where we see faces. I am not sure what he thought of my constant, obsessivepreoccupation with this, but I think he might believe it is because i am artistic, and it seems our son is too, that is why. But my mother was not...

I try everyday to not repeat my mother's mistakes, to live my life so I don't end up in her life. But there are things that are out of my control. Genetics is too powerful. Inherent, subconscious likeness from parent to child passes down, good and bad, and it is something that I need to accept. 

I am having children at a younger age than my mother who had me at 39. If I do get Alzheimer's, I want for my children to be old enough to handle the situation. At 56 I knew something was not right about my mother. I was 16. When I am 56, my children will be 26 and 22. I hope that I can raise two strong men who have each other and their father to support them if I make it to that age and succumb to the disease.