chapter 1, it cannot be taught
Constant repetition is a part of living with dementia. This repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing for my Granny - she has only a limited number of stories to tell, if she was to realise that she had told them many hundreds, even thousands of times it would upset her and perhaps she wouldn't be inclined to tell them. That said if she did realise then she wouldn't have dementia and she'd be able to remember other things to talk about.
She loves to tell you a story. You can see it when one occurs to her, you can see it in her eyes and in how she sits a bit straighter and leans forward holding her hands together with a smile. She'll tell you about her parents' dog Jock, and how the local police would borrow him on a saturday night as they did their rounds of the pubs. He was an Airedale, smooth coated, and when he stood he could put his paws on her father's shoulders, and her father was six foot two. I don't tell it the same way as she does, but she will tell it to you again sometime using exactly the same words with the same intonation. She might tell you in five minutes, an hour or next week, she'll never forget it, but not that she's told it. I'm all there with my coughdrops, she'll tell you.
I am used to repeating myself too. Where we are going, what we are going to do, who we are going to see, what the occasion is, whether she paid or I paid, that I'm not out of pocket, that she has given me some money for the petrol, that I've got the key in my pocket, that we left a light on for the cat (she worries about the cat and that it might not be safe in the dark), that we locked the front door, the back door, that we left a light on for the cat, that she has given me some money for the petrol, that we locked the front door, the back door, that we left a light on for the cat. You get the drift.
The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realise the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
I think meditation helps.
She'll never change. She is the Tao. The desire to make her better only makes you more aware of the manifestations of how she is. The world of 10,000 particular things that just come round and round and round again.
She is very patient. She will hear you out as you explain to her whatever you want her to understand. She will understand but she will not remember. You'll explain it to her and she will understand. She is very patient, she will listen to you, but she will not remember. You'll explain it to her and wonder whether it is you or it is her, whether your mind is playing tricks on you, or if she is playing a trick on you.
