I've been watching Queen of Tears on Netflix and it's almost over. The heroine Hae-in has some kind of brain tumor, and her husband finds a hospital that can operate on her, but it will cost her her memory. My mother died of dementia, which was one of her illnesses, but it was not the cause of her death.
I started this blog because I wanted to remember everything, even if my memory fails. I'm afraid of amnesia because in high school I did experience temporary amnesia, partial amnesia, where I couldn't remember the people around me, my family and friends. But they remember me.
Losing your memory is not a good thing, you will become a different person, different from the original you, and everyone else will be a stranger to you.
I slowly regained my memory, and my family and friends, my high school classmates, helped me remember them. But I have lost a lot of my childhood memories. I don’t remember much, just what people told me happened. I still remember what happened when I looked at my photo. That’s why I like taking photos and writing diaries. I didn’t write a blog at that time.
If you look back at my old posts you'll see more stories about me and things that happened to me. I love that, even now when I look back at my photos I can't believe they happened, all the happy memories come flooding back and it's a great feeling.
Dementia and my mother
When my mother was diagnosed with dementia, I had mixed emotions. But most of all, I feel sad and frustrated for my mom and for us. For my mom, because my mom lives a very interesting and exciting life full of adventures. My mother was a go-getter, a fighter, an independent woman, and a loving mother who helped many people when she could. I wish my mother could tell us all her adventures, now it's my aunts who tell us stories about her that we never knew and wish we knew.
My mother Antonia, also known as Leani in her hometown, was so popular in her birthplace that she was like a celebrity at the time, even her wedding was featured on magazine covers on, while Senator Juan Ponce Enrile was still alive, a legendary figure who was one of their wedding godfathers.
She is a fashionista. When I was a kid, I knew my mom had her office clothes tailor made. She wears high heels and stockings to work. When she visits relatives or goes shopping on the weekends, she wears elegant clothes with matching colors, and sometimes wears earrings that are big enough, but she never dresses up beautifully.
When she has dementia, of course she loses interest or forgets to take care of her appearance. Since then, we've done most of her looks. But when memories of my mom surfaced, she would be saddened by the sight of herself looking nothing like her, without makeup, dressed a quarter as elegantly as she would have liked.
Honestly, I feel like my mother has disappeared since she was diagnosed with dementia and can barely tell who I am, who my sister is, who my daughter is. She was just a vessel for some stranger, my mother's body, but it was no longer my mother inside.
Well, she didn't completely lose her memory, she still remembered her siblings. She would call me and my sister her siblings, my aunt. I think we have been erased from her memory and it hurts. I miss my mom so much. The way we talked, her funny advice, how she scolded the TV when it was playing or something was going on that wasn't to her liking. I miss her singing. I miss her strange loving ways. I miss my mom.
Yes, that's the painful part of losing your memory. Everyone is a stranger, and you become a stranger too.
queen of tears
Hae-in faces a choice, lose his memory or live? But I agree with her about what kind of life I would live if I couldn't remember anything or anyone. She doesn't want to lose her memory and live the life of a stranger. Is she too selfish? Of course everyone remembers her, but she doesn't remember everyone.
Is she extending her life so that others can continue to cherish her as much as she is, or is she simply keeping the vessel she loves while her spirit is all but gone.
Some people say that it is not important that you have forgotten everyone, what is important is that they have not forgotten you.
Let's put it this way, it's like a toy, even if it's broken, you can't let it go. Even if it's messy, it's still there. You don't play with it anymore, but it has all your good memories. But it doesn't work anymore, it's just there. That's how I feel about someone with no memory, who does what you tell her to do, but she doesn't know why she does it. She's like a doll that does whatever you want.
Who are the memories for? For you or for someone else?
The Queen of Tears would rather die on her own terms than live in an unreal way. I get it. I want to remember everyone until my last breath and I want to be myself. I don't want to live in a strange world. I don’t want to live the way people think or know.
Who are we when we have no memory? nobody.
Is what others think of us more important, or is our experience and our memories more important?
The lavender field, for Hae-in, held many beautiful memories of her and her husband, but when she lost her memory, it was just a lavender field.
my mother's forty days
Tomorrow, April 25, 2024, will be the 40th day since my mother passed away. When she was healthy, she helped many people. Many people even said they would not forget her. But lo and behold, when she woke up, only a few people showed up. Not even a dozen.
So tell me her memory is failing. It's likely that the people she helped also had amnesia.
