Demented

Dementia means, literally, without a mind.  The condition of dementia used to be associated with aging, a more or less natural outgrowth of years on the planet.  That is, until Dr. Alzheimer came along with his notion that an actual disease was responsible for at least some percentage of the cases of lunacy.  But could it be that the vast majority of those who "lose their minds" do so because everything which once tethered memory to reality no longer exists.  When all links to an event in your life have been eradicated, what is the point in holding on to the memory of that event.  With the realization that you're in an abyss of recall that no one else could possibly be aware of, that recall may as well be a figment or fabrication of your imagination.  Try bouncing a ball off a wall that is no longer there.   Those of us whose memories extend far back, way before the digital age where all potentially important memories can be preserved, may be deprived of such confirmation of what the world was like, and thus who they were.  I doubt though that, in years to come, aging individuals will use digitalized media aids as a way to verify their soundness of mind.  Solitude and isolation seem destined to  do their work, same as now. 
     A Memory (or not)..........A vivid memory occurred to me:  I am in our back yard, near the garden gate.  The gate swings open, in  quite a wide arc, and it is painted a sort of orangy color. ( My father built the gate wide enough to allow entry of a plow so the soil could be tilled at the proper time.  The paint is a shade of orange because he painted it with a mixture of paints left over from other projects.  The gate, including the entire fence surrounding the garden is no longer there, nor is the garden itself.  My father is gone also.)   My mother is working in the garden, a joy and passion of hers, as well as a duty.  I would say we kids were playing baseball, but it was not our usual game.  That would have been in the driveway, with all the activity directed toward the lot next door and away from the garden. This day, Billy, a boy who lived down the street stopped by: he was not one of the regular player of games in our backyard, and so it was not our usual game, in our usual spot.  I suppose he was idly looking for something to do, so there was a bat and a ball, and my brother pitched to him.  I was catcher, and when I leaned down to pick up the ball, my head exploded.  Billy, in his pre-adolescent vigor, had kept swinging the bat, and caught me right in the  forehead, lifting me right off my feet and onto the ground. I remember my mother coming out of the garden and yelling for someone to go get ice from Sara's store. I remember Billy returning with something cold, maybe ice or maybe a cold bottle; I just remember the sensation of cold.  The ice would have been in one of the 2 soda coolers in the store.  It would have been delivered by A.Z. Zappone in his weekly or twice weekly visits, dependent on the weather, and deposited in the red cooler, which was for the individual seven-ounce soft drink bottles, or the green cooler next to it, which was where the larger, quart bottles of soda and Vichy were kept cool.  (Ths store building is no longer standing; the coolers are long since gone; Mr. Zappone and his ice truck have long been gone, as are Billy, Sara, and my mother.) I remember my mother,before I went to school the next day, arranging my hair  over my forehead to try to conceal the large black and blue goose egg which had sprung out.  So why hold on to a memory, which, though significant at the  time, means absolutely  nothing to anybody at the present time; all the landmarks have disappeared, almost all the people are gone.  Maybe the definition, or diagnosis, of dementia should encompass what is retained in our mind as well as what is missing from it.