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Mourning, or is it pre-mourning. It does not feel like a failed romance, or a breakup. I could not return the ring, the photos, the letters, or the sentimental sweater that I could never wear. We are so knitted together after more than forty years of marriage that the returns would be meaningless and then, how much would they be remembered, or the occasions that made them the perfect memento. There is so little memory and the memory is attached to a different world. It is like trimming the Christmas tree, only the angel and the bird go on top. Everything else has a new place each year.

I am a participant observer, really more a line judge, called upon to confirm or elaborate on an answer. I watch the administration of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. I know the questions. I can sometimes see the written responses; I do not try to see them. I do not want to know her answers, especially drawing the clock. This is such an anachronism even today. I wonder, what will the substitute be when reading a clock is no longer a 2nd grade requirement? How many of my own generation with digital clocks and timers on almost all electronics and even in their pockets would struggle with this drawing? I have heard stories about how people approach this task. Some begin with twelve and six, then three and nine, filling in the rest of the numbers and next the hands. Or there are those who start with twelve, then go clockwise with one through eleven. And those who alternate, twelve, then, eleven and one, ten and two, nine and three and so on. Everyone seems to start with twelve. I know she has failed. All is see on the clock are lines delineating a sector, like the emergency sector on the radio room clock for a twentieth century steamship. There are no numbers. Just the sector. Silent – no transmission. Listen for the distress signal.

The auditory questions are harder to avoid. I sit, impatient, suddenly the eager elementary student, “Let me answer, let me answer. I know the answer.” Instead, I must sit and listen. “That is a really ugly animal. I don’t think it exists. It is really, really ugly.” It is a hippopotamus, she has skipped the giraffe, and I think of the poem, “With bullets made of platinum, because if I use leaden ones, his hide is sure to flatten ‘em.” And illustrations from children’s books. Even childhood vanishes in the ravages of memory loss.

Oh God! Not math! Especially mental math! “Subtract 7 from 90 and then subsequently all the way to zero”. Stuck at 83. The mental gymnastics for all those numbers. Seven less and we are coming to seventy — maybe seventy seven. Why sevens? They are supposed to be lucky. Let’s try with paper. And it is just the saddest face that looks at me. The face from childhood, the face from school, when you know you should know the answer, when it was a time when there were answers, and right answers. You also know you have done this before. And got it right. Was it just luck? Some in class always get it. “I just can’t do it.” A slow shake of her head. Total abnegation.

Then to words. Let’s try those if numbers don’t work so well. How can she be excited about this after the last failure — and a known failure? Memory maybe leaky, episodic, latent, working through long associations to get to giraffe from her early days of mothering and her son’s favorite animal. The one he always wanted to see at the zoo. The one he always drew in 2nd grade. The animal has suddenly come back.

Now we want words, beginning with S. No repeats. No words for numbers. No chaining. First word, “silly” so quickly followed by “stupid” — a slight grin, the excitement is back, confidence growing for this silly, stupid set of tests. Suddenly a turn, “sylvan”, “saffron”, “sable” then “seeking” and “smart” (delivered of course with delectable pleasure) a few more, but her heart is no longer in it. The fun gone.

I am so proud when I see her, the very one I know who can shine through, with mischief and superiority because she is smart. But mostly, I am sad. Seeing her grasp for what once was easy – struggle to make sense of reality and why she is here. What do these tests mean in themselves? She knows there are consequences. There will be judgement. She too knows. Knows something, but not the same something we know. She too is mourning; we are both united in accepting loss.

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** After the Titanic disaster, the authorities required ship’s radio rooms to cease transmission to listen for distress signals for three minutes each half-hour. In 1980 as a US Naval Officer, the radio room still maintained the watch on the :15 and :45. Like the analog clock, we were anachronisms in our time.