The past beats inside me like a second heart.—John Banville

What if a loved one losing their memory made them happier with themselves, others, the world? If all their past abuses, transgressions, phobias, biases, etc., slowly faded away and a smile emerged? Not a senseless smile of ignorance or foolishness but of peace, patience, and serenity…could we accept this?

In my poem “Heal,” a fictional tale is told of a woman with just this experience. Her childhood abuses, poverty, desperation, inability to find unconditional love and years of therapy to understand and overcome her past are slowly wiped away, and the happiness she always sought begins to alight upon her, a simultaneous loss and discovery. It is said that dementia robs loved ones of a family member, but what if it also returned the original happiness this person so deserved and was deprived of their entire lives?

In Makoto Ogawa’s Studio Art piece “They Tell Me It’s Normal Grief,” (Spring 2018 Intima), the author sketches the tale of a woman continuing to see a deceased person, even though she understands—on a logical level—that person is no longer living. The sketch doesn’t specify whether this deceased person holds a negative or positive association, but imagine it was the former. The drawing and accompanied harried writing exemplify how the past can still live on in the present and affect our day-to-day lives; how perception is reality; how some people spend their whole lives grieving again and again (not necessarily over a person but a job, a home, the hope of having a family); a perfect illustration of those struggling to let go of the past in order to maintain their sanity and their ability to have hope for the future.

Of course, we would never wish this fate on anyone: that the buried past remains buried, but perhaps, this is the best course for some. In Louise Penny’s novel, The Long Way Home, a character’s mother, Clara, who has dementia is described as such: “She’d forgotten to love, but she also forgot to hate.”

Rhiannon Weber wrote her first poem when she was 9 years old. She went on to earn her BA in print journalism and has held writing roles on all ends of the spectrum, from editing to closed captioning. Her poetry has appeared in Obsessed with Pipework, Blue Collar Review, The Storyteller, Iodine Poetry Journal, POEM, and The Orchard Street Press. She hopes that one day her acceptance letter pile will reach higher heights than her rejection letter pile. Her poem “Heal” appeared in the Spring 2020 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine.