DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
My name is Irene Blainey, I am a Toronto based creator, performer, and avid storyteller. My love of storytelling started with my grandmother. She always encouraged my creativity and exploration of different genres. It is because of her that I want to tell this story.
The inspiration for this concept came from my own personal experience living with a grandparent with dementia. When my grandmother first started showing symptoms of dementia, I struggled to understand how quickly things had escalated and how to interact with her as the disease progressed.
Unfortunately, this was all taking place during the early days of the pandemic as well, which meant visiting her was near impossible. I found there were many things; milestones in my life, changes in our family, problems I was facing, and even world news, that I wanted to talk to her about but couldn’t. Aside from the fact that we couldn’t visit her, I knew some of the information would be things she wouldn’t understand or things that might upset her, and so it all remained bottled up inside.
I wanted so desperately to go back to how things had been before dementia, when I could talk to her about anything. The closest thing I could find to that was her still-activated voicemail. I called her number more times than I could count, expressing all the things I wished I could tell her, but never would. I felt very alone in my experience as it was happening, and my hope for telling this story is to help prevent that feeling for others going through something similar.
CONTACT
Irene Blainey