My father, who had only been abroad a few times when I was growing up, told me stories of a trip he took to Europe with his parents in 1966 when he was 14 years old. My father told me how Nonie loved Switzerland's clean streets, the flower-filled window pots, the fireplace (with clever recesses on either side for drying clothes and warming bread) in the house in the hills outside my father's hometown of Lugano, and the poverty of her aunt's house in Pozzuoli, a town outside Naples, where she had lined the walls with newspapers for insulation. Sometimes my father would pull out the projector and show us Kodachrome slides.
As an adult, I had been telling him for years to take that trip with me again, at least a shorter version that would take him to Switzerland and Italy, to Lugano and Naples, to show him where his family comes from. But now, as his Alzheimer's disease progresses, the suggestion took on new meaning. I hoped that looking back at the past might help him live better in the present. A few years ago, I read about reminiscence therapy, a palliative treatment for people with memory problems. In this therapy, participants' strongest memories are recalled: memories formed between the ages of 10 and 30, during the so-called memory bump period, when personal and generational identities are formed. Reminiscence therapy can take many forms: group therapy, individual sessions with caregivers, co-authoring a book that shares the patient's story, or conversations between friends. But the goal is the same: to comfort, engage, increase connection, and strengthen the bond between patient and caregiver.
One of the more immersive iterations of reminiscence therapy is Town Square, an adult daycare center for dementia patients that I visited shortly after it opened in 2018. The center is a man-made village designed by the San Diego Opera to resemble a 1950s town, complete with restaurants, a hair salon, a pet store, a movie theater, a gas station, and city hall. Town Square hoped to improve the quality of participants' lives by recreating a time when their fondest memories were kindled. The decor is sure to inspire conversation – for example, a woman who saw a portrait of Elvis in the living room was transported back in time and told about her teenage years. “No one has a time machine except a human being,” writes Georgi Gospodinov in his novel “Time Shelter,” about a psychiatrist who develops a memory clinic that simulates past eras. I was skeptical at first — the idea of ​​locking people in a double-locked stage set with oldies playing 24 hours a day seemed grotesque — but what I witnessed there — spontaneous reminiscences in an upbeat atmosphere — was probably the only positive thing I've seen about Alzheimer's.
I wanted this for my father. I wanted to give him joy now that we had closed the store that meant the world to him. He would not be in day care, but perhaps a repeat of the 1966 trip would allow him to relive the scenes of his youth. In truth, I wanted to replace the terrible memories of those years, not only for him but for myself as well. Over the past 16 months, I made countless calls to his doctors, banks, and lawyers, negotiating discounts on interest rates I couldn’t afford. When he undermined my efforts by making small payments without my knowledge or denying his illness, I was angry, but he never blamed me. No, he vowed to try harder. Sometimes he would yell back at me, calling me a nuisance and a “pencil neck.” But even when I confronted him to the point where he yelled at me to get out of his house, I knew he loved me unconditionally and would apologize immediately. He trusted me, even when I didn’t trust myself. This weighed on my existence, and he never asked for anything in return, never expected anything. He never brought up a fight afterwards, and it wasn’t just because of his illness. He didn’t harbor the resentment I faintly harbored for the mistakes that piled up as his brain got smaller, though I knew none of them were his fault. Still, why didn’t he make a plan? Didn't he see his own mother suffering and struggle to support her?