Where Memories Sing

For my Grandma Rhoda, who inspired me to write. For my children, Tamim, Soraya and Layna. For my husband, Micah. And for all the beautiful seniors I am blessed to care for.

*****

The everyday ritual was the same. The lights came on, blinding her. Wake up. Wake up. Breakfast. Someone changed her soiled clothes and bedsheets as she lay naked and exposed in the cold air. She lost all care about covering herself as the caregiver's diligent hands worked fast to bathe her aged body. There was burning and stinging as the wet washcloth scoured the reddened areas around her thighs and under her sagging breasts, but she had learned long ago not to cry out.

She was the old and demented one in the village.

Most days she looked out the window, her only view of the outside world. The mornings were the most enjoyable as the sunlight hit her weary face. She'd imagine she was in a memory from long, long ago, where her feet touched the sand and she lay near the beach, letting the sun kiss her skin. The seagulls were calling out with the crashing of the waves while her... while her...

But she could not remember. The memory would fly away before she could see the rest of it. And then the caregivers returned and bothered her to eat, dress, bathe, sit up and try to understand all these puzzles and card games that were too complicated for her to follow. Sometimes she cried but she could not understand why, and then the medication dulled her senses. But she did know one thing for certain. She was lonely. Oh so lonely.

As she lay in bed watching the stars rise high in the dark sky behind the silhouette of the distant rainforest, a lovely but sad melody drifted through the open window. It was a mix of flute-like clarinets and the sad but sweet notes of a gently played piano, and it tugged at her heart and urged her to get up.

She pulled herself upright with the bedside cane until she was sitting against the side of her bed with her aching feet planted firmly over the packed dirt floor. Although her body resisted and groaned with pain and stiffness, she forced herself up, holding her walker close to her body so that she would not fall.

In the other room, she heard the heavy snores of the night shift caregiver. Now was the chance to leave. She had to find out where the music was coming from.

The first step was always the scariest. She stumbled, almost fell. Her walker clattered and almost made a noise loud enough to wake the caregiver. But she took another step. And another. And then she was past the door and out into the village where the dogs ran free and growled under their teeth at her from behind their master's nipa huts. The roosters and hens gave warning clucks as she stoically walked under the mango trees they slept in. The mosquitoes bit and the ants stung her bare feet. But she walked. And walked. Until the road transformed from packed dirt into rough gravel and the village with its dim lantern lights completely disappeared from her site. And then somewhere along the way, she lost her walker.

What a miracle, she allowed herself to think, if the caregivers found her now, walking without her walker. But that was not the first thing on her mind.

All she could hear was the music. It eased the pain in her feet. It warmed her although the rainforest was cold in the dead of night. The crickets were but a dim ambience in the rolling notes of the melodies that carried her body to wherever it would lead her. Here, far in the heart of the Philippines' rainforests where the villages lay hidden around mountain bends, hardly a soul ever wandered out this late in the night, let alone an elder. Elders were meant to stay at home, nestled in blankets on hard bamboo beds, sipping chicken porridge with ginger and egg through toothless grins while the grandchildren heeded their wise words with wide-eyes and respectful nods.

But Evelyn- yes, if she remembered her own name correctly. Evelyn did not have words to say. All that could come out through her toothless gums were odd syllables and a mix of unhinged conversations while her hands gestured at unseen things and concerned the caregivers and made children laugh or stay away. The waves of confusion would turn her words into agitated buzzes, like bees on the attack, and then out of the blur would come a spoon with a bitter grey paste forced into her mouth. After that, she would sleep for hours. Hours with her head on a table while the other elders sang and played and talked of things she could not understand.