The Man in the Mirror: Reflections on Dementia Caregiving in Lebanon

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I study the different expressions of grief that I experienced while taking care of my Father who lived with Alzheimer’s for over a decade, in Beirut, Lebanon. As his primary caregiver, I was shocked by the reaction of the medical team who, at times, treated my Father as ‘invisible.’ Drawing on a parallel between Pokr Mher, an Armenian mythological figure, and my Father’s status locked in the house for years, I explore how alienation from friends and family affected him. I stress the caregiver’s significant and under-represented role, possible burnout, and withdrawal from society. In a country entrenched in corruption, and sinking in economic and political malaise, the Beirut Port Blast created an immense wave of collective grief, paralleled and even outweighed by the extracted grief of going through the Alzheimer’s arc. I shed light, too, on the importance of one’s mother tongue in dementia care. Discussing end-of-life matters in one’s own language may carry with it a finality that a second language masks. Finally, in seeking to bequeath meaning to my caregiving journey, I emphasise the role of life writing as a tool of remembering and focusing on the fullness of the forget-fullness journey.