I decided for my conference work to interview people with parents or grandparents who were losing their memory (in any capacity) on how this memory loss has affected their relationship with this person. I ended up talking to five subjects, as well as taking notes on my own grandparents. I was not looking to prove a thesis, or come to any sort of conclusion, rather I wanted to hear the subject’s stories and see in what way the loss of memory affects emotions. Having come to the end of the project, I realize that I have gleaned other information from my research, such as basic emotional feelings for family and how these are affected by life experiences. I discovered much about love and guilt and feelings of filial duty, and began to understand better the complex web of occasions, statements, family history, inter-relational emotions, and misunderstandings that connect to determine the response and course of an individual human being’s emotional life. Everything I learned during my research I can easily apply to my focus in playwriting, as well as to my personal understanding of humanity. However, for this brief summary, I will concentrate on the aspects of my research which pertain to memory.

The subjects included three college-aged women (S, B, M), two college-aged men (J, M2), and one sixty-eight year old woman (S2). The family members to which I spoke to the subjects about ranged in age from 71 to 94, including one deceased. All were grandparents but one.

I began with questions concerning childhood memories in an attempt to understand "the way it was". In four out of six cases I found a strong bond had existed between the subjects and their elders between the ages of four and twelve. Although the subjects used powerful words to describe these bonds, i.e.: "He was one of the…pillars of togetherness" (S), I found that the subjects felt these bonds were not enough. Being a child, they could not engage their elder in adult conversation and reminiscence in the way they now wish to do and cannot, due to the infirmity. Memory loss paradoxically drew them closer than they might have been, while blocking the very relationship the subjects wished to gain. The subjects in question felt regret that they had not had the chance to "know" their elders.

The two subjects that had not been close to their elders at a young age (M, S2) were also drawn closer to them because of the memory loss. Together with the other subjects, they wish to make their elders happy in the final years of their lives. I found this feeling springs from emotions as wide as guilt, obligation, love, and the understanding, through losing a part of them, that they could be lost completely at any moment.

I then delved into the circumstances surrounding the moment wherein the elder began to lose their memory, and the subject’s initial response. I found that half of my subjects accepted the situation. One of the three (S2) had not had a good relationship with the elder, and so it does not necessarily preclude acceptance of such loss. Acceptance does not necessarily make the loss easier to deal with, nor does helping the elder, as with subject S2 who knew her mother appreciated the help but hated the fact that she had to be helped. Within my research acceptance showed only an individual characteristic of the subject, and did not point to any specific common element in the relationship. One of the remaining subjects (M) did not understand or care at first; in my opinion because the relationship with the elder was described as being "nonexistent", and the subject was away in London when the change happened. Upon returning and coming into direct contact with the elder, the subject was "shocked that the relationship had changed so suddenly and drastically", and immediately began to take care of her elder. The other subject (B) was the youngest of all interviewed (8 yrs. old) when her elder lost her memory from Alzheimers. She reported "freaking out", mainly because of guilt.

Guilt played a large part in all of the subject’s reactions. Subject B thought it was her fault for moving away from her Grandmother that she became sick. This case was particularly strong in emotion in that the subject’s grandmother lost all memory of her family, including who the subject was.

To further confuse the child, before moving away she had told her grandmother that she was going to take care of her forever.

Then I left and then she started getting sick, and that was weird.

Because of this intense feeling of guilt, subject B tried to spend as much time as she could with her grandmother so that maybe she would get better. Subject S’s grandmother had died on the day she was born, and she was subsequently named for her. She said she always felt responsible for the death, and so felt

This past experience produced the guilt that, coupled with a good childhood relationship, led to S accepting her grandfather’s condition. Subject M was hit by two feelings of guilt; one for not "being a better friend" to her grandmother (the elder), and another for not understanding at first what her mother was talking about when she called her in London to explain what had happened.

Even now, M feels guilty for not being where she is needed. Subject J’s grandfather died when he was young and away at camp, and so he never got to say goodbye to him. Feelings of guilt over this loss have led to J’s realization that he could lose his ailing grandmother at any time. Consequentially he gives her "double hugs every time". Guilt was the most common emotion involved in the reaction my subjects had to their elder’s loss, and it led each time to an increase of involvement with the elder.

The next question I pursued was the involvement of the other close family members, mainly the parents of the subjects, with one exception. I found that the parents own reaction played heavily in the causation of emotion. Subject B blamed her parents for making her move away (she hadn’t wanted to move in the first place), and became "moody and angry" around them. They, in turn, refused to let B visit the elder and see her in a state of illness.

They didn’t want that to be my last memory of her. I think that’s good.

Although she has now come to terms with her parent’s actions, at the time they produced an atmosphere of anger and sorrow in the home. Subject M felt a great obligation to her mother, who was the only one dealing with her mother’s illness. Although M found the work (dressing her, feeding her, putting her to bed) "extraordinarily upsetting", she did it out of obligation and sympathy for her mother. Subject J’s mother has also had to take the full responsibility for her ailing mother. She is strained, according to J, and takes it out on her husband and son.

She’s a lot quicker to yell at us.

But he is understanding, and it seems to have increased his willingness to spend time and talk with his grandmother. Subject S2 had a different situation wherein her father would mistake her for her mother (his ex-wife), and tell her about his life. S2’s mother became very angry with the two’s apparent "desertion" of her. This experience added to the distance that had to be breached when the mother’s memory began to fail later in life. Subject M2 situation was also different from the rest. His step-grandfather’s memory began to go, and his grandmother’s reaction was so vehemently angry that it caused a breach between the step-grandfather and the rest of the family. I found that the family’s response to the memory loss always impacted the subject’s emotional state in dealing with the situation, and I found the reactions to be as varied as snowflakes.

I next inquired as to the changing of roles in the subject’s relationship to the elder. I found that in every case the roles of child and teacher flipped. Every subject interviewed made some comment about the child-like quality their elder had gained, or how they had been "demoted" down the ladder of idolization. None of the subjects lost any respect, admiration, or love for their elder, but as they were now the ones teaching and explaining things, they experienced a shift in the roles they had been accustomed to. Subject M became nervous that she would make her grandmother upset:

Subjects S, B, and J had to treat their elder "like a child", with varying emotional reactions to this change. S accepted the change "as long as he’s not wetting himself". B reacted out of anger that she had not prevented the loss. J relished the opportunity to teach his grandmother new technology as a way of bonding. S2 has enjoyed "becoming the memory" of her mother.

My final questions had to do with how this experience has changed them. Most exclaimed that they now try to spend more time with their family because they have seen one taken away from them. Only one was afraid now of their own memory loss, but not horribly, and the rest accepted the fact as human fate.

I hate it, but what can you do? I’m not a computer.

This project taught me a lot about memory and emotion. I don’t feel like I can make any definitive statement regarding the findings of my research, except that humans are incredibly complex beings influenced by the past and future, changed by the present humans that surround them, and full of feelings that are determined by a mammoth amount of information and association; quite like memory itself.