Remembrance of Things Present : Alzheimer’s disease, which robs a victim of her thoughts and memories, spares the essence of her being to delight in life.

In the early 1950s, my mother was on a quiz show. It must have been a radio show, for I vaguely recall listening at home with my brother and sister. We couldn’t have seen it on TV because we didn’t have one.

As the program neared its end, there were only two contestants left, a man and my mother. She was asked to name the three peaks of Mt. Rainier. Since we lived in Washington state, this was not a difficult question for her. “Liberty Cap, Point Success, Columbia Crest,” she answered quickly.

The man was then asked, “Who said, ‘I think, therefore I am’?” He couldn’t remember. “Descartes,” said my mother.

She won the top award, a diamond ring. He won a freezer. As soon as the show was over, they traded prizes. He had just become engaged and had no ring. We had only a small icebox and had to keep our meat in a frozen food locker downtown. Everyone went home happy.

My mother turns 81 today. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She no longer knows who said, “I think, therefore I am.” And I’m no longer certain about the great Cartesian proposition. The terrible illness has taken much from my mother, but not her identity. Rather, it has clarified her. She has mastered the art of losing. The affliction has made her even more herself. Always gentle, generous and full of hope, she now is the very essence of these qualities. My mother has taught me that Descartes was wrong; thinking and being are not one.

My parents live in the woods outside Olympia, Wash. When you stand on the high deck of their house and look west or south, you see the forest. But if you turn east and look down a long tree-lined ravine, there is Mt. Rainier against the sky. Immense. Perfect. Unchanging and ever-changing. Black in the gray light. Scarlet at sunset. White in the blue air. Some mornings, my parents rise early to watch the sun blaze behind it. Then, dazzled, they go back to bed.

I go home as often as I can. My mother and I sit in wooden chairs on the deck and feast our eyes on what Washingtonians call simply “The Mountain.” The conversation invariably takes the same turn. “Isn’t it grand!” my mother exclaims, leaning forward. “Yes,” I say, “but I wish I could recollect the names of the peaks.” I hold my breath for an awful instant. “LibertyCapPointSuccessColumbiaCrest,” she responds in a rush of words. “Mama,” I tell her, “That’s what you should have named your three kids.” She laughs. My mother knows she forgets our names and those of her grandchildren. She frets when she can’t recall the titles of the poems she taught in high school for so many years. It hurts her to have forgotten all the students she tirelessly helped climb the lower slopes of Parnassus. Yet she triumphantly remembers the mountain peaks.

The last time I was home, it was impossible to see Rainier. A gloom of clouds each morning, followed by too much of the rain that I used to think gave the mountain its name. But I knew it was there. And even when my mother’s thoughts are foggy and beclouded, she’s there, too. Like the ancient volcano, she may seem inactive, but she’s far from extinct.

I hope Rainier continues to doze; the state hasn’t yet recovered fully from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. I dream, however, that some cure will be found for Alzheimer’s, that one day our friends and relatives afflicted with this dementing disorder will awake and burst once more into intensity, shooting plumes of forgotten names into the air, releasing an avalanche of memories, covering the earth with lost recollections. But even if this vision never comes true, my mother is still here, the person she always has been, the human self I love, like the mountain in its serene presence.