Dementia. The word of the decade, maybe, but before it displayed itself as an awful management problem for the entire world, it was an intimate agony in private worlds.<\/p>\n
Some years ago I was sitting in a booth at my favorite diner eating a BLT. In the next booth were a white-haired man whose back was to me and a younger woman who was facing him and me.<\/p>\n
She was loud, in an annoying sort of way, while he spoke so softly I couldn\u2019t hear his words. She talked about doing taxes and paying bills on line and how easy it was. When he got up to go to the bathroom, in an anxious sort of way she asked one of the waiters if he could help her father turn on the bathroom light.<\/p>\n
The bathroom light went on, as did a dim light in my brain.<\/p>\n
When the gentleman returned to the table, I heard her say, \u201cWe don\u2019t have to rush, there\u2019s no one home waiting for us.\u201d He murmured something and she responded, \u201cI\u2019m your daughter. I\u2019m your only daughter.\u201d And in response to another murmur, \u201cYou\u2019ve never been alone in your life, Dad. Today, there\u2019s no one but you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He murmured to her again and she repeat several times, \u201cYes, your daughter — that\u2019s me, Dad. You have a son and me, I\u2019m your only daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n
I realized he was demented. And as I listened to her repeat her simple reassurances over and over again, I found it as sad as I\u2019ve heard it could be.<\/p>\n
I was lucky, in a way. My mom died young and Dad was mentally acute throughout his life, although he was eccentric to the end. I didn\u2019t have to take care of a father who did not remember I was his daughter.<\/p>\n
The woman in the diner had initially irritated me. But when I realized what she was coping with, I admired her — for taking him out, for her patience in explaining things again and again.<\/p>\n
Just before they left, he said to her, \u201cTomorrow\u2019s Sunday, isn\u2019t it?\u201d And I had to think for a few seconds before I realized that, yes, tomorrow was Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dementia. The word of the decade, maybe, but before it displayed itself as an awful management problem for the entire world, it was an intimate agony in private worlds. Some years ago I was sitting in a booth at my … Continue reading