Review: "Remind me who I am, again" by Linda Grant

Personal view:

To start with a personal reference, I want to make the point, that reading this book was sometimes very emotional for me. It makes one think about their own family and mortality.

Linda Grant, the author, is writing from very private perspective, which reminds me of my own family story. I once had a grandmother, who had ‘alzheimers’, sometimes forgetting about her own son (my father). This fact upset me more, than the fact, that she forgot about me.

For this reason sometimes it felt hard to continue reading. But I liked the fact, that Linda Grant was very honest, not distorting the truth or her own opinion.

Intro:

In the following I want to analyze different perspectives of the illness in the narrative by Linda Grant.

On the beginning I start with theoretical points like ‘What is the story about’ and ‘Who is telling the story’ and so on. Furthermore I want to explore the moral values, different perspectives of different people on the disease, the process of the illness and different dynamics, e.g. between mother and daughter and the relationship of power between doctor and patient. On the end I want to interpret the style of writing in the use of metaphors and similes. In between I will try to make short conclusions. But nevertheless, even liking this book a lot, there are always some critical points, reflected and shown under the chapter ‘limitations’.

Content and characters:

Coming to the analytical part, this book ‘ Remind me who I am, again. ’ is written by Linda Grant, telling her own family story – from her point of view and with all the information she was able to find out.

The main character in this plot is her mother - Rose Grant – who’s having a Multi-Infarct-Dementia, memory loss.

So all in all the story is about the process of the illness and how the environment, especially Linda and her sister Michele, is getting along with this situation and how the disease has impact, both on their mother and their own lives.

Kind of story:

This story is chronological told and the reader gets a clear picture of the whole scenery in their head. But sometimes there are some flash backs, too – just to help to explain how the author is feeling about herself in the present in comparison with her childhood.

In my opinion we can talk about a quest story^[1][2]. Illness is seen as a journey on which you will learn more and more about yourself and your own definition of ‘sense of life’.

But it is more than only a journey for her mother, more for herself. Life and attitude of Linda Grant is changing.

She converts the aspect on her mother, who in the end isn’t a mother at all, who is more like her own daughter. Though this thought I am going to pick up later in my assessment.

Perspectives:

During the whole story you can filter out a lot of different perspectives and according to this various ways of understanding.

The perspective of Linda is overriding, being followed by Michele - her sister, continued by J ohn Bridgewater - the clerk of the home Rose Grant is taking place at the end of her disease and

supplemented by the lay-perspective of Rose Grant herself. Other key figures mentioned in this family history are the father of Linda and Michele (the husband of Rose Grant) and Ben, the son of Michele (Linda Grant’s nephew). Both of them are not to be able to get a word in edgeways. The father is already been fade away and Ben is too young to comprehend the whole situation.

But all in all these different views have one thing in common: they try to get along with a functional perspective ^[3] in understanding this process.

Everything and everybody seem to have a function – the hospital, the home, friends, neighbors, the jewish denomination, shopping, and so on. Actually John Bridgewater seems to be the ‘perfect’ doctor, carer, adviser and contact person, who always seems to be interested in his patients, not seeing them as a number. However he criticizes the ‘others’ - other institution or doctors – often cause he political situation due to the result, that elderly ill people are coming too late into a assisted accommodation or nursing home, being nearer to death than to life.

The process of the Illness, relationships and influences:

Just to go deeper without losing the red threat during this examination, I want to begin with the process of the disease, followed by the influence of Rose Grant on her environment and, converse, how the ‘others’ have an impact on her. Furthermore I want to point out the lay-perspective, just trying to understand the way Rose Grant is realising her situation and how she is modifying her own character during the different stations of her illness.

At first the process of the illness: In the beginning Linda mentioned, that there was some kind of memory loss before thinking of any disease. It seemed to be a ‘normal case’ to forget sometimes about things. Maybe it is a question of the own personality of Rose Grant.^[4] Maybe her father, when alive, eventually covered up his wife,^[5] but know that he is dead, he is not able to do so anymore. Summarized

Linda doesn’t know for sure when this process of memory loss started. Ironically Linda remembers a past statement from her mother, mentioned about Alzheimer:

“ ‘And I hope I drop dead before it comes to that’, she always says. ‘I’ll kill myself first.’ “^[6]

But in reality, taking all in conclusion, she was on the way of losing her short memory, getting depressed and feeling lonely.^[7]

“One of these symptoms of this disease is called emotional incontinence.”^[8]

To handle the situation and to get informed, Linda Grant was reading a lot about this illness ‘MID’ and was talking with many doctors and experts. To understand what’s behind this word, Linda chose a simile:

“The arteries in the brain are like a road map on which each highway is separate from every other and if there is an accident in one place you can’t get round it by going a different route.”

Chronologically the illness-narrative was going on with diabetes and many telephone calls from Rose to Linda Grant, forgetting about where things are lying and feeling lonesome, because of forgetting the visits of Linda Grant, which took place days before. Later even the doctor of Rose Grant contacts Linda, because her mother is coming every single hour to get her medicine, forgetting about the fact, that she already has it.^[9] The most obvious fact is, that Rose Grant is repeating again and again the same question and talking every 2 minutes about the same topic, so that conversation wheels in smaller and smaller circles.^[10]

“But the part of my mother’s brain that had died was part of the hypocampus which is concerned with processing short-term memory, […]”^[11]

“A silent, unnoticed death had taken place in her head.”^[12]

To take care about her and saving her for taking any overdoses, Rose Grant gets daily visits from a district nurse and also had a private reminiscence worker.^[13] But the disease is a slow and not ending

process. So it was getting worst and worst. And in the end Rose Grant tries to hold her identity together.^[14]

“ I see her loneliness, her isolation from the world, the battle to make it through every day without major mishap, without getting lost or burring herself or falling in the bath or forgetting to take her tablets or turn the gas off or pay her phone bill or eat.”

She sometimes is crying, getting angry^[15] from one time to the other, running away without knowing where she is driving to and makes her daughters feeling guilty.^[16] Linda is describing it as ‘ sunshine and showers’^[17] and that this emotional incontinence is a typical syndrome of MID.^[18] Ironically Rose Grant is repeating the sentence, if she already told her daughter being diagnosed with a memory loss.^[19] In the end, to protect her mother from herself and given her someone who is telling her, what she has to do^[20], Linda and Michele are searching a home for her.

“Her own home had become a prison, a torture chamber.”

And finally, after a lot months (because different institution didn’t think, that she is that bad, but just seeing five minutes in which Rose is giving her best to show a good facade)^[21], she went to a Jewish Care. Rose Grant herself often shows different emotion belonging to this change in her life, between ‘Let’s go’ and ‘I don’t want go’.^[22]

The clerk of this home is John Bridgewater, a very friendly person, who’s helping Linda Grant a lot to come along with the whole situation. Also with Iola and Fionnuala, two of the woman taking care about Rose Grant, he has big luck.

“[…]given her the kind of warmth and intimacy that so few people in this life can offer strangers.”^[23]

[...]

^[1] http://Zitate.net/tod.html

^[2] Deborah Lupton, 2003: p.95.

^[3] Deborah Lupton, 2003: p.7.

^[4] Linda Grant, 1998: p.104.

^[5] Linda Grant, 1998: 112.

^[6] Rose Grant in Linda Grant, 1998: p.105.

^[7] Rose Grant, 1998: p.111.

^[8] Linda Grant, 1998: p.120.

^[9] Linda Grant, 1998: p.122ff.

^[10] Linda Grant, 1998: p.298.

^[11] Linda Grant, 1998: p.133.

^[12] Linda Grant, 1998: p.135.

^[13] Linda Grant, 1998: p.20.

^[14] Linda Grant, 1998: p.146.

^[15] Linda Grant, 1998: p.235.

^[16] Linda Grant, 1998: p.202.

^[17] Linda Grant, 1998: p.230.

^[18] Linda Grant, 1998: p.237.

^[19] Linda Grant, 1998: p.166.

^[20] Linda Grant, 1998: p.159.

^[21] Linda Grant, 1998: p.156.

^[22] Linda Grant, 1998: p.195.

^[23] Linda Grant, 1998: p.234.