Toying With Nostalgia

When my three grandchildren left my house after a visit, I found that they'd been playing with two stuffed animals. My mother Sybil Miner Beck often held those animals on her lap as the ravages of her Alzheimer’s disease became more and more noticeable. I returned them to their storage bins and began to recall their importance. One was a fuzzy white dog about twelve inches long and ten inches high. The other was an even fuzzier white cat with almost the same dimensions.
My mom was raised on a farm near Indian Head, Pennsylvania with seven brothers and sisters: Rachel, Cora, Violet, Dale, Ina, Cosey, and Ted. She used to share stories of her past life on the farm as she raised me, my brother Ken, and my sister Kathy Beck Basinger. These stories became fewer as she aged. Sometimes we would start a story and look to her to corroborate the facts and she would only respond, “If you say so.” Her past memories became locked away in the dim recesses of an uncooperative mind. It was sad watching this intelligent and witty woman disappear as Alzheimer’s claimed more and more of her faculties.
She loved to read, but Alzheimer’s stole that ability from her. Near the end of her life, she forgot how or why it was necessary for her to eat. Occasionally after much coaxing from our family, she would reluctantly take a bite and swallow it.
With that history out of the way, I will return to the reason I started to write this tale. While she still lived with my dad Edson Carl Beck someone gave her the dog and the cat. Some women cling to a doll to hold to care for as their mental capacity diminishes. My mom claimed the cat and dog instead. She would hold one or the other on her lap, stroke it, or just rest her hand on its back. I can’t remember when she got them, but they became her constant companions.
When she and then my father passed away, I inherited them and kept them with the toys for my grandchildren when they visited me. But as time passed the significance of what these two stuffed animals meant to my mom struck me. Now they have a new resting place on my bed playing hide and seek among the pillows.