There is an elderly gentleman at a long-term care facility in Ottawa. I have not met him, but I have seen his photograph. At 99, he still possesses a spark in his eye. He looks much more physically robust than his biological age would suggest. And his features still retain the handsomeness I imagine he was said to possess as a younger man.<\/p>\n
Recently, I spoke with his daughter, who I\u2019ll call Leah. Leah is keenly aware of the disconnect between how people may perceive her father \u2013 living to an age most of us will only dream of, still in decent physical shape, happy and smiling \u2013 and her awareness that he once was so much more.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not truly him, she explains, her voice cracking. Her father was always fastidiously groomed, courteous and extremely gentle. Now, under the spell of dementia, what she calls a \u201ccruel\u201d and \u201cinsidious\u201d disease, on some days her father must be cajoled into showering. He has, on occasion, resorted to physical outbursts. And he has lost the social filter that we all depend on to carry us through everyday interactions. \u201cIt destroys me on a daily basis,\u201d Leah says. Every time she sees him, she adds, she feels he has \u201cdied a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
But bring him to music, and his spirit comes alive again. Leah sometimes performs at the facility where her father lives. When she does, her father rises from his seat, singing, filled with joy. \u201cThat\u2019s my daughter!\u201d he beams with pride.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Neal Rose has recently retired as the spiritual director of the Simkin Centre, the Jewish long-term care facility in Winnipeg. He focuses on what he calls \u201cspiritual care,\u201d connecting with the person\u2019s \u201cinner reality,\u201d he told me in a phone interview. This may be achieved through the esthetic markers of identity \u2013 things like food, music, language and holiday celebrations \u2013 or through more formal religious practice, like synagogue services.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, this means entering the person\u2019s current reality. A resident, who I\u2019ll call Mr. Cohen, Rabbi Rose recounts, was getting agitated. \u201cCall the police!\u201d Mr. Cohen yelled, as his children surrounded him, perplexed. Rabbi Rose put his arm around him. \u201cMr. Cohen,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ve placed the call. The police will be here in five minutes.\u201d Mr. Cohen relaxed, and went on his way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not lying, it\u2019s not deception, Rabbi Rose emphasizes. It\u2019s entering into their reality.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a fascinating paradox at work. While dementia in many ways robs the sufferer of their identity, it also forces their caregivers and loved ones to be in the moment with them, to engage in pure empathy.<\/p>\n
I recently visited an elderly relative who is suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s. She seemed thrilled to see me, though she did not recall who I was. I realized I was desperately trying to penetrate through her fuzzy memory, to crack the code, as if she had a cinematic form of amnesia. \u201cDo you recall the sharp corners on your glass coffee tables?\u201d I asked her. \u201cYou used to place blankets over them when I brought my toddler daughter to visit.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to fill her metaphorical candy jar with memories, I explained to Rabbi Rose, when we later spoke. I knew how much pleasure my visits had brought to her and how much I enjoyed chatting over Rideau Bakery challah and hard-boiled eggs at her home, the house she had lived in with her family for decades.<\/p>\n
My instinct was understandable, but not realistic. \u201cNot if she no longer has a candy jar to fill,\u201d Rabbi Rose offered back. What\u2019s more, too much pressing the dementia sufferer to remember can only leave both the sufferer and their family members in a circle of frustration and anxiety. This is a dynamic that Rabbi Rose emphasized, and which was echoed by Dr. Lee Blecher, a primary care physician in Virginia who treats dementia patients.<\/p>\n
Still, Rabbi Rose emphasizes that it\u2019s important for loved ones and caregivers to comprehend the whole person. At the Simkin Centre, a glass box is placed outside every room. Family members fill it with mementos. Of course, the totality of who a person is can never fit inside a glass box. But it\u2019s a gentle reminder of the tension that exists between engaging a person as they are, right here and right now, and imagining a past that puts the present into sharp, sometimes wistful, but ultimately poetic, relief.<\/p>\n
Mira Sucharov<\/strong> is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at <\/em>Haaretz and the<\/em> Jewish Daily Forward. This article was originally published in the <\/em>Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is an elderly gentleman at a long-term care facility in Ottawa. I have not met him, but I have seen his photograph. At 99, he still possesses a spark in his eye. He looks much more physically robust than his biological age would suggest. And his features still retain the handsomeness I imagine he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}