Therese Park

While visiting a friend living with dementia in a nursing home for the last few months, I’ve gained some knowledge on what the disease can do to the human brain. In short, patients live in a different world than we so-called normal people do, and their senses function differently than ours. A patient might look out the window and see rain pouring down and feel depressed, when, in actuality, the sunlight is bright and flowers are colorful. His or her sense of time is off, too, and you might be greeted with “Are you ready for Christmas?” in June or September. A patient would complain about freezing weather while sitting on the patio under the warm summer sun.

Though dementia is a devastating disease that eats away one’s memory in steady progression, it doesn’t destroy his/​ her character or intelligence. At age 90, Norma is still a caring mother to her children and kind sister to her only surviving sibling, Martha.

“Martha wants me to come to her room and pray with her,” she said one day. “Can you help me find her, Therese?”

“Your sister lives in Minnesota ,” I pointed out.

“She does, but she’s here today,” Norma insisted. “She’s in one of these rooms on this floor. We just have to find her.”

“How can we find her, without knowing her room number? Should we knock on every door and see if Martha answers?”

She took a moment to think about it. “It’d take all day, wouldn’t it?”

“We have to knock on about forty doors.”

“Let’s not do it, then. I’ll tell her I can’t come.”


Not being able to stand or walk is a harsh reality for those confined in wheelchairs. In Norma's mind, she can stand and move freely about without even thinking, but that’s in the past. Like many patients in the same unit, Norma has a button―size electronic device taped on her back, and whenever she pulls herself up from her wheelchair or navigates herself into a restricted area, an alarm goes off, creating a minor commotion. “Sit down, Norma,” a nurse yells. “You’ll fall again!”

No matter how many times she was yelled at, Norma still makes the alarm go off again and again, because she doesn’t remember that she has an object on her back that monitors her body movements or her whereabouts.


Sometimes Norma feels that people are playing cruel jokes on her. One day while I was there, a woman with a bundle of dark curly hair walked in and asked. “How’re you doing this morning, Norma?”

Norma seemed puzzled. “Have we met before?” she asked, and the nurse burst into laughter. “Hey, I’m your nurse, Kay, don’t you know?”

Norma shook her head.

“Do I need to introduce myself every time I see you?” said the nurse.

“I guess not."

The nurse laughed again. “I came to check on you to see how you’re doing, Sweetie. I’ll be in and out of your room all day, so try to remember me.”

When the nurse was gone, she said, “I never saw her in my life.”


Nights can be long and tortuous for patients. During the day, they can situate themselves before the bird cage and watch the critters flutter about, feeding themselves and pecking at one another, or watch visitors passing them in the corridor――some with flowers, some with gift packages――but in the dark the only thing they can do is sleep. Norma often talked about waking up in the middle of the night by the noises outside her door. What noises, I asked, but her answer was vague. "Just noises… Lot’s of noises.”

My question was answered one day when I saw an employee wheeling out a dead body wrapped in a reddish bag from the room adjacent to Norma’s. My imagination kicked in. The noises Norma had talked about might have been the commotion caused by nurses and doctors who tried to revive a dying patient――talking among themselves, their feet busily moving about the room, and medical equipment buzzing or ticking. How could she have a peaceful night while such a commotion went on?

Someone dying shouldn't be big news in a nursing home. It seems that every resident is waiting for his or her turn, like people at the train station waiting to buy their tickets. Norma doesn’t talk about death, but she has talked about seeing her late husband again, with anticipation.


I asked her one day what she treasured most in her 90 years.

“The gift of motherhood, of course,” she answered without hesitation. Why, I asked. Words rolled out effortlessly as if she had been rehearsing this speech.

“Every mother has an important role in her children’s lives. She is their first teacher who gives them practical lessons on many things, including God and moral values, something schools don’t teach. A mother can make them feel safe and loved, too, besides putting food on the table for them. Food...?"

She stopped to look at her watch. “Oh, dear! It’s five already. I have to make dinner for my family. Can you take me home?”