When I brought my mother home from the hospital after being diagnosed with having had a small stroke, I thought we were on the right track after I had explained that Taras, her husband and my stepfather, had passed away over a year ago. (She had, as I mentioned earlier, been asking me where he was all afternoon while we were still at the hospital.) Telling her about Taras went much better than I had expected.

What I had not expected was her thinking that I was her sister, Billie. Not only had my Auntie Billie passed away some ten years ago, I don’t think I look anything like her. I let it go at first, answering to the name “Billie” (no doubt a mistake) but when I tried to correct her, she became very angry. She claimed she knew I was Billie, and that I was not to confuse her with my lies.

Now what? I eventually went along with this until she began to ask me where Steven was. It did no good to tell her I was right there. Instead of dealing with me as her son, she demanded proof that I was not Billie. Not much I could do about that. So on we went, me as her sister and my mother constantly asking where I was and why does he not come to see me. It was hard to take.

I accidentally discovered if I called her on my cell phone to chat, then showed up at our door, she would greet me as Steven and offering expressions of delight that I had come to visit, when, of course, I had been there the whole time, but always in her head as my Auntie Billie.

Such ruses, however, did not last long and we were soon back to the old game. This didn’t do my mental health any good. I finally emailed a cousin in England who had attended Billie’s funeral, hoping he might have a copy of the obituary. He didn’t, but sent me an email testifying that he had been at the funeral in question, and gave me permission to declare on his behalf that Billie had passed away.

When, after sitting her down to broach the subject, I read her my cousin’s declaration. This didn’t work too well at first, because there I was in the flesh as the person she thought was her sister. However, it cast some doubt in her mind. She trusted my cousin very much, and always had. But how to resolve the conundrum that her sister was dead when the person she thought of as her sister, me, was sitting right there.

But as the fog began to clear, I put into place a plan that I hoped might work. I used my knowledge that if I called her on my cell phone from outside and then showed up at the door, she would greet me as Steven. One day I said I was going out for a little while. She said something like, “All right, Billie. Don’t be long.” To boost my charade, I had taken a second shirt with me. I left and stood out in the hallway of our condo and called her on my cell, changed my shirt, and knocked on the door.

She had no trouble seeing me as her son, but she asked where Billie was. I said I had happened to see her when she was on the way out. I now found myself on thin ice. In answer to her question where was she going, I replied she was going to the airport to fly back to England. “Without saying goodbye?” My mother was upset. This was not going well, but I fudged my way through the next little while and seemed to establish that Billie was gone and I was back, safe and sound, and I intended to stay.

Over the next few days, we revisited the email from my cousin and slowly she began to come around to the fact was Billie had died, though many illusions remained, such as the idea that we had taken over Billie’s condo, and later that Billie and her husband had lived in a unit somewhere else in our building. But slowly over time she brought up the subject less and less often, though for a very long time she continued to called me Billie, to which I would reply, “I’m not Billie, Mother. I’m your son, Steven.” She would apologize and correct her mistake. Still, however, even now, she admits that she still sometimes thinks of me as Billie, even though she knows that is not true. She must have to replace one identity with another in some way I do not understand. Keep both in her head and select the correct one.

(In describing all this I must have the professionals care workers aghast, but with no one and nothing to guide me [that came later] I was struggling in uncharted territory while looking to find solutions to issues I had never faced before.)

With the problem of my identity resolved for the most part, you might think we had clear sailing ahead of us. Not so. There was the issue of all my mother’s brothers and sisters, and her mother, my grandmother, that had to be sorted out.

Oh my.

“Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.” – Albert Schweitzer

When I took my mother to Emergency because of her odd behaviour, I was expecting a diagnosis of urinary infection. Not so. After several tests, the doctor informed me she had had a small stroke. I knew something was up because while we waited for the results, my mother kept asking me where Taras, her husband, was. I found myself dancing on hot coals, because, of course, Taras had passed away over a year earlier. I kept telling her he would be by soon, but she kept asking the question. Now here I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I pretended to call him on my cell phone and said he was busy but would come to the hospital as soon as he could. I kept hoping she would realize Taras was gone. I didn’t know how she would react to the news. Before she was discharged from the hospital later that night, I asked the doctor for advice, but he was unsure himself and suggested the issue might clear up on its own.

It didn’t. When we arrived home, I dithered around trying to figure out what to do until I bucked up the courage to sit her down, and armed with a copy of Taras’ obituary, I said something like, “You know, Mum, Taras passed away. Do you remember that?” I showed her the obituary. It’s hard to say what came over her face. But it changed, seemed to open up, as the truth dawned on her, a truth which she accepted more calmly than I could have hoped.

We went to bed with me thinking we had gotten over a major obstacle, but little did I know our problems were just beginning.

More next time on the profound effect which that “little” stroke had on her memory.

‘Healing,’ Papa would tell me, ‘is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.’ – W. H. Auden