MY older sister was Bibi. Quite a battleaxe she was, when we differed. Yet, I loved her so. And more than her, I adored her three kids. Bhai jan, her husband, was my favourite brother-in-law. When he died suddenly, I was the first to hold her hand. Later, when she fell sick with cancer, I tended her. She’s been gone for more than twenty years.

Now, I am sick with Alzheimer’s. My memory’s gone. So, it really doesn’t matter whether I live in the US or in Pakistan. Once upon a time it did — I was determined to deal with old age and death my way in my own home in Lahore. But that was not to be. Here, I live with my son and his family. I have been in America so long that I don’t even remember where Pakistan is. Lately, I have even forgotten my son’s name.

Today is July 4th, I am told. It means nothing to me. They say, there was a time when it meant the world to me: my only son was born today, 50 years ago, in a hospital — far away — atop a hill in Murree. Where is Murree? Don’t ask, for I am blank.

I have grown weak, not shrivelled... shrunk a bit, but then they tell me I am 87 years of age. I can’t recall where and when I was born. My flaxen hair is snow white, tied up like a teenager’s ponytail. I live in a room with a view. And see lovely flowers from my window. My son brings me my breakfast and helps me to the bathroom. He does that every morning before going to work. Today, he looks sad, a bit lost. I wonder why.

To me, nothing matters any more and time now stands still. Time and space, for me have no boundaries. Silence is what I embrace. The bed is my oyster and the comforter my shell... I lie snuggled for what seems like eternity.

But today, suddenly my world of silence is shattered. I hear voices in the hallway. Familiar voices too. They grow louder and louder, as I hear footsteps approach. One by one, men and women troop into my room. Even their faces are familiar.

“Hello aunty!” says a man who I can’t quite place, but I can swear he’s no stranger either. I sit up with my legs hanging on the side of the bed. He comes and sits besides me. Gingerly, he puts his arms around me, as another man greets me with the same “Hello aunty” salutation and takes up the space on my other side. He flashes his sweetest smile... wait a minute... don’t I know that smile? Have I not seen it before... a thousand times at least? Don’t I know who he is? They are Bibi’s boys, but...

“We’re your nephews” they prompt me and wait with anticipation for a flicker of recognition from me. I only smile back at them. For I just can’t focus on the frame and clear the image of the three kids, now pushing past middle age. No matter how hard I try, the fuzziness is there.

I was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease around mid-nineties. By then, my memory was starting to fade. I could sense it being wiped out. The news was devastating for both of us — me and my son. Still, I hoped my memory lapses were due to my depression.

You see, I had no choice but to live with my son in America. I was getting old and my vertigo attacks were getting worse. I had passed out a couple of times only to be discovered by Bashiran, my maid at my home in Lahore. So, I decided, it was time to pull down the shutters, say goodbye to Pakistan and migrate to the US forever.

Here, I was a very lonely woman, left all alone in the house the whole day. My son and daughter-in-law would leave before sunrise (they had to work very hard then) and return after sunset. Besides, they had two small children to tend. Winters in America were particularly unkind. I could not step out because the cruel cold cut me to the bone and even if I did brave the outdoors, what would I have done, as I could not drive and even if I could drive, where would I have gone?

First, I noticed a mild loss of memory, especially when I tried to recall what someone had said a few minutes ago. But the memory lapses persisted and when my son took me to the neurologist, he gave us the dreaded news. He said I suffered from ‘mild cognitive impairment’ oftentimes the harbinger of Alzheimer’s. And then the inevitable happened. My memory vanished. I panicked. But I still held hope of keeping Alzheimer’s at bay.

“Aunty, it’s your son’s 50th birthday, so we flew across to give him a surprise and wish him a happy birthday!” I hear my niece-in-law say to me in Punjabi, as she pushes a slice of cake that they have brought. “Remember, how you and I would sit at the kitchen table and go through a full cake?”

The next two hours, she sits with me, listing out all the delicacies I used to serve when they visited my home in Lahore. “We simply loved your karela stuffed with keema and tied with a thread!” chips in my nephew.

I don’t remember a thing! Yet I smile, even laugh (if they laugh first) and repeat the last four or five words that they have uttered. “Homocysteine, an amino acid causes dementia,” I hear someone say, “Anyone who eats a lot of meat and few fruits and leafy vegetables is at risk. Do you know six million Americans suffer from this disease?”

Vitamins laden with folic acid and vitamin B, especially B6 & B12 greatly help in reducing Homocysteine and thereby preventing dementia, adds another.

“It’s very difficult to pinpoint why aunty got this disease... nobody else has it in our family. But, she’s lucky to be living in the US and getting the best health care available, plus she’s doing well because her son and daughter-in-law take such good care of her.”

“The problem with dementia has always been that it is so foreign and so frightening that the impulse is to recoil from it,” someone quotes a doctor who has given an interview to The New York Times. Another doctor at the Mayo Clinic claims that people with Alzheimer’s are now able to give their firsthand experience before they are fully robbed of their mental faculties. It was only some two years ago that I myself chatted away with Bibi’s three kids and heard them marvel at my long term memory where I could recall the past with just a little prompting. But today, I just can’t seem to recall anything nor remember who is who.

“So aunty, who is your favourite among us three?” asks my niece, while taking names. As I size up the three, I name the one I love the most and suddenly, I see a spark of hope in everyone’s eyes. “She remembers.”