LINKED HEARTS

Kathleen Hof

When an old woman in the end stages of Alzheimer's suddenly recalls family milestones, she struggles to make sure her daughter knows she was briefly remembered and always loved before her mind forever fades away.

This short has two concurrent threads. One thread shows the major life events the mother and daughter shared together from births to the death of their husband/father. These are not shown as memories but appear to be the actual events although the supers state a certain number of years ago. The other thread shows wrinkled, shaking elderly hands, not the person, performing simple tasks like tearing and rolling a piece of post-it paper, tearing four alphabet letters out of a book, ripping a heart label from a yogurt container. The supers show - present time. Each time there is a life event, there is a matching frantic hand scene which are connected with a specific sound. Eventually, it's revealed the unseen person is in a wheelchair. Ultimately, the daughter comes to the nursing home where the old hands reside to visit her mom and it's revealed the mother hasn't recognized her daughter for years. Upon entering the mother's room, the daughter finds her mother like always with no memory, unable to speak. She also finds a dual message made by her mother's wrinkled hands, one saying, I know you, the other saying, I love you. However, instead of the word you, the elderly woman used her locket containing the daughter's picture. Both mother and daughter were given identical lockets the day the daughter was born and both wore their locket every day, at every major life event shown.

Drama

10 pages