Let The Night Bird Sing
My mother in law's slide into dementia.
This is my husband Peter with his mother Beth on our wedding day in 2021.
Peter has always been Beth’s favorite, her baby. The love between them is like a waterfall as
says.In 2021 when Peter and I got married we bought the yellow house next to our house so that Beth and Peter’s stepdad could move to be near us. They weren’t ready to move or to give up their Harpeth River home along the Natchez Trace, so we rented the yellow house to college students for a few years. Then we sold the yellow house this spring when it finally sank in that they’re not coming.
We were doing fertility treatments in 2021. I was talking to Beth about the possibility of there being a baby and them moving next door to us. Beth snapped at me that she wasn’t going to move here and help me with the baby.
“No one wants your baby!” She yelled at me.
“I don’t know why more people don’t put their babies in a wall!” She scoffed.
I didn’t question her logic but I thought Who puts their baby in a wall? Was this some Edgar Allan Poe story I’d missed about entombing your live baby in a wall like The Cask of Amontillado? With Beth I swallowed my hurt feelings and tried to be as kind and conciliatory as possible.
She told me she had never wanted children. She said it was a good thing Peter and his older sister Jessica were easy babies.
Beth was finally diagnosed with dementia last year. Her personality has changed. When Peter and I first dated when we were teenagers, she was very sweet to me. She’d come to my medical school graduation party eight years after Peter and I had first dated. When I moved back to TN in 2017 I saw her and was so glad to see her but she barely remembered me.
I’d been pushing for four years for her to see a geriatrician and get the dementia diagnosis. There had been a house fire four months before she saw the geriatrician. She had moved the dog blankets next to the wood stove and droped coals on the pile of dog blankets.
She explained to me that she’d stoked the wood stove and she went to bed as the house filled with smoke. She put her face by the window so she could breathe and thought she’d get up if the smoke alarms went off. “An easy way out” my brother said when I told him the story.
Thankfully her husband woke up and put out the fire. She told me the next day there had been two fires in one day, that she’d left a burner on the cook stove and it’d set off the smoke alarms. The second fire in the house in one day turned out to be questioned as whether it was her mind playing tricks on her or actually happened. Her mother, Peter’s Grandma Millie, had moved in with them and left a burner on and burned up their kitchen. Grandma Millie had dementia too. Peter’s stepsister has a story of them having to tackle Grandma Millie to take the car keys away from her.
Peter went back to see Beth last weekend.
Every time he goes to visit he tries to clean out the rotten food in her fridge.
At first she was embarrassed by him cleaning out the fridge. Now she doesn’t protest.
He threw out four jars of moldy olives.
Three giant things of moldy maple syrup.
He brought back an unopened quart of Chobani yogurt. “This yogurt is from 2023,” I told him when I looked at the expiration date. “Maybe it’s still good!” Peter protested.
I tried to make quesadillas with the corn tortillas he’d brought back from their fridge yesterday. I couldn’t peel the tortillas apart without them crumbling. I looked at the expiration date and it read August 31, 2021.
I heard this comedian talk about doing standup about her mother getting dementia. She talked about Ghost Food, all the moldy bread. She bombed in her set and when she asked the emcee afterwards who was a friend what happened, he gripped her arm and with terror in his eyes and told her her set was “Just so sad,” no one could laugh.
Now the baby is coming. I told Beth in May when we found out about the baby coming. I’ve sent her all the ultrasound updates. Peter asked her if she remembered we have a baby on the way? She said No, she didn’t remember that there was a baby coming.
It all goes in the end.
We had a college graduation party for Peter’s son Aaron in May.
My friend JJ (Jennifer Jane) Niceley’s band came and serenaded everyone at Beth’s 11 acres on the Harpeth River for Aaron’s party. I called Beth after the party to thank her for hosting. She said she loved the music and it reminded her of the big parties they used to host. She said the birds came and loved the music and sat in the trees over JJ and sang along with JJ’s music. It was like a magical fairytale. Here’s JJ singing a song she wrote for our dear friend Cassie who died of breast cancer in 2020. Let the Night Bird Sing.
Yes there’s a fine line between sad and funny. Sad and happy. Maybe it’s our condition as humans to always carry the sad with us, ultimately it’s what defines us. The sadness and how it is for us. Thanks for your post.
There's something about music that helps people with dementia unlock memories, just like having that party made her remember of the parties she used to host. There was someone here who has a newsletter about that topic but can't recall the name right now. I'm still thinking of what could have triggered that comment about the babies in the wall, maybe nothing but I'm still wondering....