Fill in the Blank

Leaving the bank, I passed by the manager's office and heard her call out my name and wish me a good day.

“Thanks! You too.....................” and there was a blank space where her name should have been.

“Ma'am!” I finished lamely. By the time I got to my car, I'd remembered it was Valerie but it was too late. The moment was lost. These days, although I find myself more and more trying to fill in these kind of blank spaces, it was the first time I could remember just flat out blacking out on the name of someone I've known for years. It was unsettling.

I love language and it annoys me no end when a specific word just will not come. Once a year I re-read “Wheel of Fortune” by British writer, Susan Howatch, for the sheer joy of the dialogue and the incredible elegance and creativity of her writing. My cousin writes with much the same grace and I often wish I had her gift. I don't know if she has these pauses with words that just unexpectedly refuse to show up but I'm betting I'm not the only one it happens to. I like to tell myself it's just absent mindedness and not anything more serious like some misfiring brain cell at death's door, crossing over and never to be heard from again. After all, everybody's forgetful now and then. It's part of the process. And just because the name of a bank manager eludes me for a few seconds or I can't remember why I came into the kitchen …. well, it's irritating but no cause for panic.

Before my mother was diagnosed with cancer and a host of other ills, she had moments of dementia. She would become vacant-eyed and bewildered during a scrabble game, not be able to recall the name of a common household item or suddenly lose the thread of a conversation. As a family, our second nature learned responses kicked in at once - we simply pretended it wasn't happening - just like we'd learned to pretend she wasn't a drunk. Just like we'd learned to fall asleep to the sounds of a raging argument or the crash of a ashtray hitting a wall. There was no cause for panic at those moments either.

I kick my denial into a higher gear and tell myself that these early warning signs (ironically, the word “precursor” evades me even as I'm writing), are unimportant. I focus on being grateful that these random memory lapses don't come any more often and cost me nothing but minor aggravation. It's easy to call someone an asshole or moron or son of a bitch but it's magic to call someone “....the jaundiced secretion of a bilious toad's eye...” (Sybil Fawlty, Fawlty Towers).

No matter how limited it may become, I will never not love language.