Elaine’s dementia chillingly unfolds within the first few minutes of this film. Time Passages begins with Elaine’s phone messages to her son, Kyle. Repeated calls, confused, she maintains calm as she asks for his help.
Kyle Henry, filmmaker and Elaine’s youngest child (“the accident”), tries to help.
He wonders: If I could put all our fragments together, maybe there’s a way through the present crisis… and the fire yet to come.
He asks, “What happens to [our] identity when our memories fade away?”
Time Passages is a beautifully narrated memoir that invites you into the intimate details of the Henry family’s life. Elaine has documented her life “in meticulously arranged scrapbooks.” Her son, Kyle, uses white gloves to view his family’s archives—those Kodak moments; plus, the many home movies. What emerges is an extraordinary story of an ordinary family engaging the viewer within the first two minutes.
As with most of us, beneath our captured memories, are the untold struggles. The youngest of the Henry family shows the matriarch, a vital force, declining with dementia during the COVID global pandemic. Stay-at-home orders in early 2020 keep a loving son away from his mom.
The Early Years
Kyle’s mom, Elaine, the eldest daughter of four children was born to second-generation Slovak immigrants. She bravely makes the best of each stage of her life—from an interest in art during childhood and a desire not to marry, display of independence and self-respect in a job with a demeaning boss; to college, love, marriage and family; and finally, living with dementia. Through her son’s camera lens, we witness a rare level of integrity and sense of humor.
Kyle interviews his parents as they jokingly share about their first meeting and falling in love. His father, Richard, an only child who served in the Marines, views having five children as a miracle. Richard, credits his wife, Elaine, for being his mentor. “She has allowed me to be a much better person.”
The Empty Chair
About a third of the way into the film, there are two empty chairs on a stage. Kyle sits on one facing the empty chair. A Gestalt Therapy technique, he converses with his imagined mom, artistically symbolized with a wig. He asks questions he believes he should have asked his mom earlier. “Am I doing the right thing by exposing you and myself in this way?” The imaginary Elaine answers, “I’ve always told you to trust your heart; so, do what you think is best.” Kyle sighs.
Growing Up
Elaine was working two jobs while Richard couldn’t find work and sat at home. Elaine encouraged her son to go to college to be financially independent. Reflecting on his childhood and a scrapbook created by his mom, Kyle was smart; winning academic contests while interested in the arts. At Rice University, Kyle studied hard. He wonders how much of his effort was motivated by the need to make his mother happy.
Being the last child and eight years younger than his next youngest sibling, Kyle grows close to his mom as the older children leave home. When his parents argue about house chores getting done, he’s the last to be at home and feels the pressure of having to grow up fast. Years later, he asks his mom why she doesn’t divorce Richard since she mentions it often.
In college, Kyle matures quickly. He comes out of his shell. Being raised in the south (Texas), he faces challenges at age 21 when he comes out as a gay man.
While therapy was not an option in his mother’s era due to stigma and cost, by the time Kyle is in his 40s his health benefits afford him one. In 2013 as his dad is dying, Kyle flies from Chicago to Houston repeatedly across five months. Kyle and his sister, Lauren delicately handle removing life support as Medical Co-Powers of Attorney.
Elaine Grows Suspicious
While people with dementia experience cognitive loss, some have a keen sense of what lies under the surface of our words and smiles. Elaine expresses concern that people are going against her.
Her family realized, after raising her children in their five bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home for 30-plus years, Elaine could no longer live safely on her own. The family agreed she needed 24-hour care.
Valuing Our Life’s Possessions
After buying increasingly larger homes across the first two decades, the family decides to sell their mother’s home in Houston.
Kyle details how little fifty years of his parents’ life’s possessions, yield. Only $1,700 profit after expenses for the estate sale and cleaning the home. And in 2015, $175,000 for the family home. All of this would contribute to Elaine’s care.
How surprising the miniscule sum, the result of a lifetime of our family’s treasures. When I held an estate sale of my parents’ 45-years of possessions in the late 1990s, the amount was also small. At the risk of a tangent, at least, I was able to close out 30 years of trauma when my childhood bully returned.
Moving into Memory Care
Elaine’s dementia worsens and she has since moved from Texas to a Memory Care-Assisted Living at St John’s Home in Rochester, NY. Kyle feels horrible as if he’d abandoned his mom; especially, after learning of nine COVID deaths in the nursing home. The guilt is too much. Kyle feels shame. His mom is depressed and losing weight. Her dementia is progressing. He manages to visit one last time, wearing a face mask and a clear plastic shield. Initially, she appears not to recognize him. Then she points to the framed photo of her years ago holding him, a child. She looks at him and smiles.
Chicago-based Kyle keeps in touch with his mom via Zoom, where he sings and she hums with him.
As the film began, we hear again, Elaine’s phone messages to Kyle. “Dad died” [seven years earlier]. The “hotel” she’s staying in is alright. She’s been waiting for someone to pick her up.
The End… Motherless Child, Yet Hope
Toward the end, Kyle sits on a stage in one of two chairs. “I feel like a motherless child to not have somebody with me who perhaps knows me better than I know myself. I just don’t know what to do with this feeling of absence.” His imaginary mother advises, “I’m gone… Let me go. Let me be.”
Elaine’s concluding words in the film (paraphrased): Life is not easy. Small things make up life. Don’t let anyone change your mind about who you are.
Elaine Jeannette Kovalchik Henry 2020 Obituary
Hopes for a reunion when they can sing together again.
The Caregiver’s Voice was given access to the entire 86-minute film.
In my opinion, this trailer does not adequately capture the heart and depth of this 86-minute film. Then again, this is true of most trailers. Time Passages is worth every minute and more; especially for caregivers for people with dementia.
To learn more about Time Passages, view this interview with filmmaker Kyle Henry.
