Dementia on Aisle Nine

Yesterday I took a friend who's living with dementia to the grocery store. Not just any grocery store, but her favorite grocery store. It's a co-op, actually, and in the next town over from where she lives. It's not the most convenient or closest option – we pass a Trader Joe's, a Food Lion, an Aldi, and at least 3 Harris Teeters on our way – but like I said, it's her favorite.

If I'm honest, I still get a little anxious whenever I go to the grocery store with one of my friends who has dementia. (Maybe in part because I get anxious even when I go to the grocery store by myself; all those people, all those options…) You can never be sure how someone with cognitive impairment will act in that unique environment, land of "cotton candy grapes" and "cherry cola" Oreos; where tablets mounted to the freezer tell you what ice cream matches your personality and Christmas music plays in October.

Then, of course, there's also that whole "human interaction" aspect of the grocery outing…

One of my clients pauses at the store's entrance and formally salutes the security guard every time we go to Publix. I can see the bewilderment on the guard's face as she wonders if he's making fun of her or insulting her somehow. He has some cognitive impairment, I want to telepathically communicate. Just go with it, please. Another client speaks to every stranger in every aisle. Folks are often befuddled. Why is this guy talking to me like we're friends? And why did he say he liked my shirt? 

Helen, the friend I take to the co-op, is an absolute delight and one of my favorite clients to spend time with. We've gone together to various medical appointments and I've bought groceries for her, but this is our first shopping trip as a duo. Helen's driver's license was suspended last year and she no longer has a way to get to this favorite grocery store. She hasn't been in a while, and the joy is apparent and immediate when we arrive. This is her spot! 

Within minutes of walking through the doors, something catches Helen's eye down the aisle: "I know that woman." She says. She walks straight up to the stranger, "I know you, don't I?" I stand a few paces back, not wanting to intrude on the interaction. "Where do I know you from?" Helen asks again. The woman admits Helen doesn't look familiar to her; she doesn't think they know each other. Helen then snaps her fingers in an aha! moment, "I've got it! You look like Joan Baez! That's why I thought we knew each other!" The good natured stranger laughs and plays along, "Oh yes, I do have grey hair like Joan Baez!" Helen apologizes and the shopper continues down the aisle. I release a sigh of relief, thankful that the folk-singer-lookalike was easygoing and kind. 

Helen and I get some food from the co-op's hot bar and head to a table outside. Soon after we sit down, it happens again. Helen sees a woman passing by and says to me, "I know her. Trust me – I'm good with faces; I know that woman." I inwardly squirm a little, wondering if perhaps it's just another celebrity doppelganger. I listen as Helen approaches the woman at the table behind us.

H: "Hi, don't I know you?"

Woman eating her tofu and microgreen salad (it is a co-op, remember?): "No, I don't think so." 

H: "Really, I'm sure I do know you." 

The woman sees me watching from afar and motions me over. "This happens to me all the time," she says to us. "No matter where I am, people think they know me when they don't." 

I couldn't help piping up to dissuade some of the awkwardness I felt, or to somehow temper Helen's disappointment and likely frustration at another missed connection. "Well, maybe you just have one of those spirits," I say lightly. "Where people think they recognize you based on your spiritual light!" Anything to wrap up the conversation. 

"Well, that's probably it." The woman responded. Phew, I thought. The "recognizable spirit" line worked. She continued, "I've been a lifelong student of Thich Nat Han so I do believe in that type of spiritual connection." 

As I'm about to gently take Helen's arm and suggest we return to our table, Helen stops. "Thich Nat Han!?" she exclaims. "That's it! That's where I recognize you from; I DO know you!" 

Turns out Helen was right. As we continued talking with the woman, we learned she did in fact lead a local course on Thich Nat Han, one which Helen had attended for years. This woman, this "stranger" was exactly who Helen thought she was. Helen was right, she'd been right all along.

I was bowled over by the interaction with the Buddhist teacher. If I'd let my own discomfort get in the way, if I'd somehow tried to stop Helen from approaching this woman, it would've been a great loss for everyone. 

We went back into the store to grab a few items and as Helen and I debated the virtues of pitted versus non-pitted dates, I saw a nearby shopper staring at us. Oh gosh, I thought. Just another uneducated community member who's never seen someone with dementia at the grocery store! I tightly smiled as the woman kept looking at us, obviously curious as to why Helen kept returning to the same spot to get the same item multiple times. Right when I wanted to shout "Never seen a woman with memory loss buy groceries before!?" and school this stranger on the tenets of inclusivity, she spoke up. "Helen?" she said. "Helen, is that you?!" 

The woman hadn't been staring out of judgment. She was having her own "don't I know you?" experience. And she did, she did know Helen. And Helen knew her. And they exclaimed and embraced and caught up and exchanged numbers and even had me snap a photo. Two decades-long friends who'd lost touch, reunited beside the figs and almond butter. 

I learned so much from my grocery trip with Helen. I marveled at what a missed opportunity it would've been if I'd insisted we go to the store more conveniently located right around the corner from her house. Or if I'd said "You stay home, I'll go grab the groceries" or "Let's just get them delivered, it's easier that way." 

Helen was happy at the co-op (and not just because the chocolate biscotti was on sale). It was a place that felt familiar to her, an anchor in the increasingly choppy sea of living with dementia. She felt safe there, and known. And she WAS, in fact, literally known! 

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If we keep hiding away our friends with cognitive impairment, insisting it's "easier" to play in the margins, we do an incredible disservice to them… and also to everyone else. It's tempting to fall back on my mantra that society's discomfort with persons living with dementia is "a cultural problem, not a Helen/George/Sandy/fill-in-the-name problem." But at the same time, how can we expect the culture to become more comfortable, better equipped, less judgmental, more inclusive of people living with dementia if we don't let them have experiences with these friends? If there's no exposure!? 

One of the first times I was at the grocery store with George, after he saluted the security guard and complimented the outfit of every shopper we passed, he got in line and was making small talk with the cashier ("See, this is why I never do self checkout. We lose the human interaction!"). He paid with his credit card and the cashier handed him the receipt. Then George handed his credit card back again. "Umm," the confused teenage boy at the register replied, "you... just paid me." George laughed, "Gosh, this damn Alzheimer's!" "Oh!" the cashier smiled, "it's no problem, sir." Now, whenever we see our new friend working at Publix, he grins at George and waves hello. 

The cashier got some firsthand experience with dementia. 

The Thich Nat Han disciple got to connect with a like minded student. 

George and Helen got to be out in the world, among the people, in a beautifully diverse and engaging environment. Where they could know us, and we could know them.

Sure, it's just grocery shopping. But actually, it's not – it's so much more.