I have been watching Queen of Tears on Netflix and it’s almost over. Hae-In the leading lady, has a brain tumor of sorts and that her husband found a hospital who can operate on her but it will cost her memories. My mom passed away with dementia as one of her illness but that was not the reason for her death.
I started this blog because I want to remember everything even when my memory fails me. I have a fear of memory loss because back in high school I did suffer temporary memory loss, partial amnesia, I couldn’t remember anyone around me, my family and friends. But they remember me.
It was not a good thing, to lose your memories, You will be someone else, different from what you were and everyone else is also a stranger to you.
I regained my memories slowly, my family and friends, high school classmates, helped me remember them. But I have lost a lot of my childhood memories. I don’t remember much, only things people tell me that happened. I also remember things looking at the photos I have. This is why I love taking photos and I love writing journals when blogging wasn’t a thing back then.
If you look back at my old post you’d see more story telling about me and all the things that happened to me. I like it that way and even now when I read back and look back at my pictures I can’t believe they happened and all the happy memories came rushing back to me it is a great feeling.
Dementia and my mother
When my mother was diagnosed with dementia, I had so many mixed feelings. but most importantly I feel sad and devastated for my mom and for us. For my mom because my mother lived a very fun and exciting life full of adventures. My mother is a go-getter, a fighter, an independent woman, a loving mother, and she helped a lot of people when she can. I wished my mother was able to tell us all her adventures, it was my aunts who now tells us stories about her that we never knew and wish we knew.
My mother Antonia, also known as Leani from her home town was very popular at her birthplace, she was like a celebrity back in the day , even her wedding was in a cover of a magazine and the Senator Juan Ponce Enrile who is still alive and a legend was one of their wedding godfather.
She was a fashionista. I’ve known my mom to have her office clothes tailor made back when I was a child. She wears stiletto and stockings at work. And on a weekend visiting relatives or going shopping she will wear elegant clothes, matching colors and her earrings are as big as her ears can take sometimes, She never goes out not looking all put together.
When she got her dementia, she of course lost interest or forgot to take care of her looks. We’ve done most of her looks since then. But when a hint of my mom’s memories gets her she would feel bad looking at herself looking so not her, not made up wearing nearly a quarter of how elegant she would want her to be.
In all honesty, since my mother was diagnosed with dementia and can barely tell who I is, who my sister is, who my daughter is, I feel like my mother is gone. She is just a vessel of some stranger, the body of my mother but not my mother inside it anymore.
Well, she didn’t entirely lose her memories, she remembers her brothers and sisters. She’d call me and my sister her siblings, my aunts. I guess we were erased from her memories, which is painful. I miss my mother so much. The way we talk , her funny advises, how she scold the TV when it was not for her liking whatever was shown or was happening. I miss her singing. I miss her weird loving ways. I miss my mother.
So yeah, that is the painful part of losing your memories. Everyone is a stranger and you become a stranger.
Queen of Tears
Hae-In has a choice, lose her memories or live? But I agree with her, what kind of life would I live if I don’t remember anything and anyone. Was it selfish of her to not want to lose her memories and not want to live a stranger. Sure everyone remembers her but she doesn’t remember everyone.
Is she prolonging her life so others can continue cherishing her as her or just have her vessel her liking around even when it is almost her spirit is gone.
Someone said it is not important if you forgot everyone, what is important is they don’t forget you.
Let’s just put this this way, it’s like a toy you can’t let go even if it’s broken, It’s there even if it’s a clutter, you don’t play with it anymore but it has all your good memories with it. But it’s not working anymore it’s just there. That’s how I feel someone with no more memories is she does what you tell her to do but she does not know why she doing it. She’s like a doll do what you want.
Who are memories for? For you or for others?
The Queen of Tears is stern in dying as herself than living as not . I get it. I want to remember everyone until my last breathe , I want to be me. I don’t want to live living in a strange world. I don’t want to live as how people think or know I am.
Who are we when we don’t have our memories. Nobody.
Is it the perception of others about us that matters or is it our experiences our memories that matter?
The Lavender fields, to Hae-In it has a lot of beautiful memories of her and her husbad but when she lose her memories it will just be a lavender field.
My Mother’s 40th Day
It will be my mother’s 40th day passing tomorrow April 25, 2024. Only my aunt and probably her former caregiver will be there to attend the mass. When she was well and was herself she helped a lot of people. A lot of people even said they won’t forget her. But lo and behold, at her wake, only a few showed up. Not even a dozen.
So tell me, her memory failed. The people she helped probably have amnesia too. OO nagpaparinig ako !
