Mechanical Mommy

“My Mum has dementia and quite a few of my family were concerned about what would happen if I came out to Mum, whether she might be too stressed to handle it. . . When I eventually came out to Mum, I kept it very simple. And she said—at the end of it, she said, ‘Well,’ she said, ‘What do you know? I’ve got a beautiful new daughter.’ And she said, ‘Come here, love.’ …I go and see Mum every few weeks and she’s forgotten each time, and every time I tell her again, she gives me just the same beautiful reaction that she did exactly the same, almost word for word every time. I’m kind of the luckiest one of all because I get to come out to Mum 100 times a year, and every time, she’s beautiful.”

To me, the story is creepy. I mean, good for the daughter, yippee, but think of that poor old Mum. It’s not her fault that her memory’s gone, and one would think a grown child would be more sensitive to the mother’s illness. The old lady is still human, in spite of the dementia. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a senseless robot.

There was this Spanish movie about a fellow who found a key chain shaped like a woman’s head. The key chain repeated “I love you, I love you” in a mechanical voice whenever he wanted it to. The guy grew so attached to the key chain that no actual woman could compete because women kept trying to say and do more than just mechanically repeat, “I love you.”

It seems like the daughter in the story wants a key chain like that and not a human mother.