Ninja at Night

As daylight fades and night envelops our home, my aunt undergoes a remarkable transformation. By day, she requires assistance to navigate even short distances, her body frail and movements cautious. However, as darkness has descended and everyone is in their respective rooms to sleep, she becomes an unexpected figure of agility and confidence, darting across the rooms of the house with an energy that belies her daytime vulnerability.

This striking change may stem from the effects of dementia, blurring her reality and diminishing the fears that typically constrain her. In this altered state of mind, she becomes a stealthy ninja, unburdened by the apprehensions that hold her back in the light of day. Her nighttime escapades unveil a complexity of spirit and resilience that challenges the stereotype of frailty, raising questions about the interplay between fear, memory, and the essence of self in the twilight of life.

We have learned to deal with this part of her behavior over the past few years. When it first started, when she was still able to walk without help, she would pay each of us a visit, entering our bedrooms at will, and asking to curl up beside us. With patience, she would be guided back to her own bed and tucked in, wishing her a good night. However, this would not last for very long and she would once again be at our doors.

We employed the locks, but she used her fingernails to unlock them. (We all had learned to do this because of our pet dog, Ellie Mae, who would often open doors and steal things when she was younger.) Because locking the door was no longer a deterrent for my aunt, we had to implement other means to block her attempts.

A camera system was installed to keep an eye on her, and to keep her safe. My cousin and I are both able to access it with our phones, and when there is detectable movement from her bedroom, we are able to see. There is a camera in almost every part of the house making it easy to track her progression through the house once she leaves her bedroom.

My bedroom lies right next to her, so I am the first line of defense. When I heard movement, I jumped out of bed and escorted her back to bed. This whole process could repeat for half a dozen times a night, offering little to no sleep for me, not to mention the times she got past me and woke up my cousin on her side of the house, interrupting her sleep as well.

Over time, we stopped fighting the inevitable, and just watched her on camera, moving throughout the house, making sure she stayed out of trouble. A deadbolt had been installed on the front door so that she would not be able to leave the premises at night, and the garage door was also disengaged nightly.

There were nights I woke up to her scratching at my door, trying to get past the plastic child safety lock I placed on the door handle. My dog and I quietly anticipating whether this is the night she'll break through. Inevitably, she would give up and move on.

Her next stop would be my cousin's door, where there is tape covering the hole to the lock on her door. It stopped her from entering most nights, but sometimes she was more determined. She spent time peeling off the tape so she could insert her fingernail and open the lock. Mind you, it wasn't just a single piece of tape. We had used quite a lot on that lock, covering it from every direction, using quite a lot of tape. For her to get past all of that, her determination had to have been quite strong.

She had also attacked my plastic child protected door cover with a knife and scissors several times, to no avail.

Often, she tried using the toaster oven to cook whatever she placed into it, never figuring out the controls. It would just beep, beep, beep, until I ran out and shut it down, returning her to bed once more. Once in awhile, however, she had managed to turn it on and burned something in the process. The toaster oven had to be placed on a timer so that it would not turn on during the night, ensuring the house would not be burnt down.

One morning I had entered the kitchen to find broken eggs on the counter next to the coffee pot, two eggs and no shells in the spoon holder on the stove, and one broken egg on the actual burner. There were three eggs sitting out next to the stove, also partially broken. The creamer was out and opened, with a portion of it poured into a coffee cup. Because of this and other incidences, we decided to get a lock for the refrigerator.

The surprising thing through all this, she was perfectly fit and able to move through the house at ease. After several years into her illness, her physical abilities seemed to diminish by day, and she started relying on us more and more to get her from point A to point B. However, at night, she seemed to move through the house without care. We would see her on camera in her room, we could see her exit her door, she would disappear from the cameras nearest her, and the next moment would find her at the opposite end of the house. All this would happen quicker than we had time to get to our own bedroom doors. We gave her the nickname, "Ninja Yolanda!"

Dementia is a complicated disease that plays with the mind in so many different ways. Sundowners, usually occurring about 4pm in the afternoon, has often happened with my aunt, causing agitation, change in mood, confusion, and lasting sometimes until she is put to bed. Twilight, however, brings out a third perspective to the disease. Her determination, whatever it may be, seems to outweigh any physical limitations placed upon herself by day, once the darkness of night is at hand. Thus, we say, she has entered the Ninja mode.