We had a sociable weekend, more than usual, family and friends. I even cooked a vegetarian lunch. Anna slept well and likes company, though got lost in the conversation, when there were more than two people. So, after lunch, she and I sat quietly together, while the others finished the meal. She looked very sad and I asked her what she was thinking. ‘I want to get out of it,’ she said.
Meaning the illness, as if she could get out of a bad situation. Like I dreamed last night of getting out of a bad situation at work. You can always do that, walk away or get the sack. Isn’t there an issue about prison sentences, that there has to be the possibility of remission even to life sentences to give the prisoner hope? In some cancers and M.S and other diseases, there may be times of remission. I don’t know if it is better or worse to be allowed hope and then have it taken away again. But it means that you can fight the inevitable.
I am not emotionally interested at all in the possibility of a cure for dementia. That sort of hope is not relevant for us. But we need to have some sense of progress (apart from the disease ‘progressing’), of making sense, of overcoming some problem or other set up by the fates.
In Philip Roth’s new novel, Everyman, his daughter repeats at his grave his stoical maxim, There’s no remaking reality. Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. (Page 5, I have only been able to read a few pages as yet.)
When I talk about the fates, does that mean anything other than reality? So I get exaggerated pleasure out of very small triumphs – repainting the hall is progress of a kind. Building a ramp into the garden will be a major achievement, even though we won’t know until it’s done if Anna will want to walk down it. A threshold can be as much an obstacle for her as a brick wall.