The Catlady Has Lost Her Muffins

A true-life account of interacting with my elderly neighbor who suffers from Dementia.

     Have you ever watched the animated movie Finding Nemo? It's definitely an all time favorite of mine. One of the funniest characters in the movie is Dory, the little blue fish who suffers from short term memory loss. Her lack of memory frustrates Marlin (Nemo's daddy) while giving the audience belly laughs. How about Fifty First Dates? Drew Barrymore plays a woman who suffers from short term memory loss, just like Dory the fish. And while we're on the topic, I'll throw in the oldie but goodie, Overboard. In this movie, Goldie Hawn sustains a bump on the head that gives her temporary amnesia. The result of this misfortune is hysterical. What do all these sweet movies have in common? Memory loss " the inability to remember short term information " which is presented in a way that is entertaining, cute, and funny.

     And then I met Carol.

     Carol is an 83 year old Dory... only, she isn't a fish, she isn't blue, and she isn't adorable. Carol feeds all the stray cats in the neighborhood, which is how she got the name “Catlady.” She lives by herself in a two bedroom house which happens to be across the street from mine. She has one cat named Joey. Her other cat, Sport, died last Summer. My father and I buried Sport in Catlady's back yard, after the deceased feline had been decomposing in her garage for several days.

     Carol the Catlady is not an attractive individual. She's old and wrinkled. She stinks. Her teeth are all rotten or missing. She chain-smokes, forgets to change her clothes, grinds her teeth, and won't throw anything away. Her house looks like a shoebox of memorabilia that has been shaken vigorously several times, and smells like the inside of a hobo's boot. But those things are of little consequence to the real issue at hand: Carol has Dementia.

     Dementia isn't a pretty word. Disney doesn't make underwater movies about creatures with Dementia (at least not yet). I'm sure what Dory had was just a faulty hippocampus. Nothing more. But Dementia is degenerative. The Catlady is slowly, progressively, losing her mind. I've been watching it happen over the course of the last four years, and let me tell you, it's heartbreaking. Here is a woman who was in the Air Force, used to be an no-nonsense English professor, an independent single woman (never married, no kids), and a highly respected leader in her community.

     Today, though, she will come to my door several times a day to ask for a ride to the grocery store, or to show me a black and white family photograph that she's shown me a dozen times before. She repeats the same stories over and over. She loses her glasses, the TV remote, recipe book, and credit cards. She doesn't realize that she already has two boxes of Golden Grahams in her cabinet and buys a third box when she goes to the store. Her kitchen is as stocked as a fallout shelter, but she doesn't know it. Bowls of cat food litter the rooms of her house because she can't remember when she last fed her kitty or which bowl is fresh.

     It's really no laughing matter, and yet...some of the conversations I have with Catlady are so bizarre, what else can I do? For instance, the day she came over to my house asking if I had an onion, admitting that she had lost hers:

     “You lost your onion?” I asked, surprised.

     “I had it when I came home from the store, but now I've lost it,” she reported.

     “Well, I'm sorry to hear that you lost your onion, but I don't have any onions to give you,” I told her.

     “I'm sorry about that, because I was gonna make my chicken casserole and I need an onion.” And with that, she went home.

     I found out later on that she had put the missing onion in a drawer. It was recovered several days later.

Another conversation occurred this Summer, while her car was in the repair shop and I was taxiing her around town:

     “When I get home, I'm gonna look for my muffins.”

     I turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “What happened to your muffins?”

     “I lost them.”

     My mouth opened and I tried not to laugh. “You lost... your muffins?”

     “Yes. I baked them yesterday. I know I baked them. But I don't know where I put them.”

     Unsure how to respond, I laughed awkwardly and said, “I'm sure they're somewhere in your house. I mean, how far can muffins go, right?”

     She laughed, too. “They must be in the kitchen someplace.”

     Finding this dialogue too amusing to keep to myself, I posted it on Facebook, in the Status bar. I got more “likes” and comments on that status than any other status I have ever posted. Everyone wanted to know what had become of the missing muffins.

      Well, the lost muffins turned up within 48 hours, just like the missing onion. She had put them away someplace “safe” and forgotten where that safe place was.

     Public situations with Catlady are always disconcerting. Like the time I took her to Ingles because she was absolutely sure that Planters peanuts were on sale " Buy One Get One Free. After searching the store and speaking with the manager (who actually pulled an Ingles circular out and looked through it with us), we were told that Ingles was not having a sale on nuts.

     Another awkward moment occurred the time we went to CVS to pick up a prescription and the pharmacist asked for Carol's date of birth. The conversation went something like this:

     “I need your date of birth,” says the pharmacist at the register.

     “October 28^th, 1913,” Catlady replies. Then an awkward pause. “Or maybe it's the 18^th. I don't remember.” Another long pause. “I weighed 3 pounds when I was born.”

     The pharmacist looks confused, maybe even slightly concerned. He asks if she is, in fact, the Carol for whom the medication was prescribed.

     “Yes,” she replies matter-of-factly. “But when I was young, I went by my middle name " Frances. Everyone called me Frankie. Then I went into the Air Force, and they use your first name in the military, so I started going by Carol.”

     I look apologetically at the pharmacist and vouch for her identity.

     He asks her a few more questions, which include this one: has she been experiencing any unpleasant side effects from the medication?

     I want to laugh at this question, because, with all her quirks " the teeth grinding, the uncontrollable (and loud) flatulence, the repetitive behavior she exhibits " how could she know what are side effects of the medication and what are symptoms of her Dementia and old age?

     The most exhausting aspect of the situation with Catlady is that what she does happen to remember is enough to wreak havoc on anyone trying to help her. She knows that every Wednesday morning she goes to BiLo to do her “big” grocery shopping. It is Senior Citizen Discount Day on Wednesdays. Also, every Friday morning " just as Woman's World magazine is hitting the news stands, she has to be at Ingles to pick one up. In between Wednesdays and Fridays, it is imperative that she buy more cat food, more birdseed, more cigarettes, more Boar's Head ham. Making shopping lists is unnecessary because she “has it all up in her head.”

     Her car has been at the mechanics since June. As I sit here typing, it is almost September. After spending the entire Summer toting the Catlady all over Black Mountain, my son now refers to her as “Mom's Bestie” or “BFF.” I am not amused by this, though I certainly have spent more time with her than anyone else all Summer. But here's the sad thing: the more I've gotten to know Carol, the more I have come to realize just how debilitating Dementia is. I've had my patience whittled away paper-thin, just like the tissue in her brain, as I've listened to her repeat the same information, the same phrases and comments, time and again. I watch her fill her buggy with the same food items during each shopping trip, to the point that I could easily buy her groceries for her on a weekly basis. But does she remember my name? Does she recall who took her to the store or mowed her grass for her or loaned her a sewing kit? No. She doesn't even remember my name.

     Yesterday she came over to chat. She gets lonely. I know she likes being independent, but she also yearns for socialization. I'm sure that's one reason why she always wants to go to the grocery store. It's not that she needs groceries. She just needs to be around people. When she came over, I stepped out onto my porch, and we talked about the stray cats at the end of the street, and her own cat " Joey, and the chicken casserole she needs to make. And then she told me about the black bugs that keep flying around her living room window.

     “I don't know what they are. You wanna come see them?” she asked.

     Do I want to go see the black bugs that are flying around her living room? Uh...no. The last time she showed me mysterious little black bugs crawling all over her white socks, they turned out to be fleas. I had been more than a little disturbed that she had enough fleas inside her house to be congregating in her socks.

     “Oh, come see them,” she insisted, leading me to her house.

     Groaning inwardly, I followed her inside. The acrid smell of stale cigarette smoke about knocked me over, as she pointed to the window where two lively, buzzing flies banged against the glass. Next to the window was a round table with a towel draped over it. On top of the towel were at least thirty dead flies. More were scattered on the floor beside the table.

     “See there? Look at all those bugs,” she said.

     “Those are flies,” I told her, repulsed by the sight.

     “Well, how did they all get in here?”

     The fact was, she never closed the door between her garage and her den. All the hot air and the bugs from the garage came into the air conditioned house at their free will. “Maybe you should try closing the door to the garage,” I suggested. And also picking up and throwing away the half dozen bowls of wet cat food that are all over the house. Potential breeding grounds for flies. Ugh!

     “Yeah. Maybe I'll try that.”

     But she hasn't. I went over there today because she couldn't get the volume to go up on her television set. The garage door was standing wide open. That was around six o'clock this evening. She has been over twice since then to tell me that she still can't get any sound out of her television set. Each time I've recommended that she call Charter (her cable provider), because I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

     What is so frustrating about the situation with Carol is how few people are interested in helping her. Social Services has done nothing besides contact her one living relative (she lives out of town), who, unfortunately, has given up trying to help Carol because “she is too stubborn and obstinate to work with.” Since I am in school now, I can't keep playing “free Taxi service.” Therefore, Carol has taken to walking everywhere, and sometimes getting rides back home with whatever kind person is willing to help. The attitude of DSS and Catlady's relative seems to be: “If she drops dead while she's out walking, so be it. It'll be one less problem for us to have to deal with.”

     Do I like subjecting myself to the noxious odors, offensive noises, and repetitive conversations that drive me to the brink of insanity when I'm with the Catlady? No. But I can't ignore the fact that she is a human being who deserves to be treated with the same kindness and concern that I would like shown to me. Yes, she is just a shadow of the woman she once was, but that doesn't make her any less human. She's quirky and annoying and inconvenient, but she has a good heart. She loves the homeless mongrels at the end of the street, she loves the noisy Blue Jays, she loves God. If she can help people, she does. She gives to various non-profit organizations, volunteers at her church and her old college, and she brings my kids little treats and goodies. I have to look past the Dementia, past all the things that repel me about her, to the heart that beats within. Isn't that what we're called to do as Christians? Love the unlovable? See the beauty inside the ugliness? Be a friend to the friendless?

      Catlady is old. She's not in good health. She won't be on this earth much longer. In a few months or years from now, she won't remember me at all. She'll forget what I've done for her, because, just like everything else, the memory of me will fade away. But I will know. I will remember. And so will God. And someday, when we're both in Heaven, I'm sure I'll meet the fully-restored Catlady and we'll walk around Heaven together, laughing about the time she lost her muffins.

Reviews

[A.Renae]

Barb,

I enjoyed reading your story. It reminded me very much of my childhood and helping my mother take care of my grandmother before she passed. I can't imagine not being there for her while her memory was fading. It was a sad thing to witness, and yes, often time frustrating. I was only about 12 at the time that she passed, and still her death affects me in some ways.

Critique wise, I have to say this is my first time doing this. I think you did a great job of describing Catlady-- who she was and who she is now. There were moments I felt like I was riding along with you during your grocery store trips and taxi rides. I can feel your frustration all while admiring your compassion.

On another note, I was a little unsure of where the story was going during the introduction with all of the different movie references. Other than that, I enjoyed your story. And great conclusion, by the way. Thumbs up to you!

[Barb Abel]

Thank you for your feedback! =) I really appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts with me. Just to address the Intro -- I was trying to contrast Hollywood's cute portrayal of "forgetfulness" with the ugly reality of Dementia. Real life is never like the movies.
Thank you, again, for your kind words! They made me smile.