It Would Be Nice to Meet Again
The human being brain consists of millions of roads leading to endless memories and landmarks, which are stored in an orderly way throughout your life. But what if your brain turns into a grey mash where it becomes more than and more hard to find one'southward fashion?
Text and photos past Mila Emmer
Cees van der Maat (97) walks through the long, crème-coloured corridor with his walker. On the commencement floor of the residential intendance home, side by side to the door of room 123, hangs a passport photograph showing his face. "This must be it", he says as he opens the door.
Van der Maat moved in to the home a few months ago. Across the street is the building where he lived for more than 8 years. Together with his wife, who died of cancer in July 2019. "It'due south so awful, but I oasis't shed a tear yet", he says. Van der Maat has been taking antidepressants for a number of years now, which has somewhat flattened his emotions. On a sunny day – until the age of 90 – he easily cycled 50 kilometres, talked to people on the street, and would get out for a walk for several hours. However, he hasn't been cycling for a while now and going out on his own in a new neighbourhood isn't an option either; so he loses his style. He finds the fact that he is deteriorating fast physically, but also mentally, difficult and very confusing.
Early May of 2019 he was diagnosed with dementia. His brain is getting worse and worse at transmitting data, considering nervus cells and the connections betwixt them are breaking down. He could spend hours searching for his wallet, which he had put next to the jar of saccharide in the closet without thinking about information technology (turned out later). Only for a long fourth dimension this was dismissed equally absent-mindedness; "something that is part of life as yous get older." Losing a wallet was soon overshadowed by 'getting lost in the building where he had lived for years', 'non recognizing people he has known for decades' and 'forgetting the names of his 4 children'. Step by step, his world has become smaller and smaller.
During his wife'southward illness the old couple couldn't take care of each other anymore and Van der Maat moved into his single room in the care dwelling house Festina Lente (Greek meaning – hurry slowly). "They always keep an eye on me here. When I sleep at dark they come to check if I'm still there", he says. He is allowed to go outside on his own, but but considering his electric current place of residence is in the neighbourhood where he has been living for over 50 years. The recognizability of the area is stuck in his memory. Fixed patterns and routines remain intact the longest.
He finds information technology very hard to become increasingly aware of the rapid deterioration of his brain. "If someone says something to me and I intend to retrieve it, I'll forget about it afterward just two minutes." The question if whether he is agape for the mental regression is well-nigh strongly answered with a 'no'. "I'm being taken good care of," he says. Van der Maat is optimistic past nature. He has always had a 'expert life', "even during the state of war", although he didn't have much.
The walls of his room are full of pictures of his children, grandchildren and old pictures from his childhood. "And she watches over me", he says, pointing at a wooden picture frame containing a portrait of his wife, hanging above his bed.
Van der Maat has always been a storyteller. People, 'his audience', would be all ears when he spoke about the war with nifty colour and detail. He would talk about where he was hiding and how he got nutrient stamps from the Resistance. Over the years, these stories accept changed. Now they are just falsely equanimous pieces and gusts of memories.
In 2008 he started answering all questions in the volume 'Opa, vertel eens' [Grandpa, tell us]. "It was given to me by my grandchildren", he explains. To know exactly what their names are, he has a booklet with a list of names and dates of nascency adjacent to it on the table. "All of them are just as naughty", he smiles.
'Health comes before all else. If y'all're healthy, be glad that you are. In the past, you didn't have the money for a good examination in a hospital; that could only be done from the year 1938 onwards', was one of the things he wrote downwards. Van der Maat reads the sentences over and over once more. "I even so support that", he says, looking out the window.
All written stories, events and life lessons from his long life, together (retyped in a number of give-and-take documents) business relationship for most 0.229 MB. By no means equally much as the brain capacity of a human being being, but enough to keep an important function of the memories and the basis of Van der Maat's identity live. An infinite life.
Source: https://theinternationalangle.com/index.php/2019/12/17/very-nice-to-meet-you-again/
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