With an elderly in the family diagnosed with dementia, translated…
For my father, who can’t tell if it’s day or night, brushing his teeth, bathing him, telling him the stories………in exchange, for a period of time of intimacy we shared
Just like in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, although my dad doesn’t look younger on the outside, but, in the psyche, he’d, deteriorated by the day, he’d started having chaos in his cognition, couldn’t tell if it’s night or day, what day it is, he’d forgotten how to get home from taking his walks, once, he’d not even, recognized my mother, and, without any family, I’d shouldered the responsibilities of taking care of him.
There was a movie that stated, that inside the brains of someone with Alzheimer’s, it’s like a jar of honey got tipped over, everything stuck together, and, there’s no way, of having clear logic anymore, and, would blurt out things that aren’t fitting for the situations, and, do things that aren’t considered normal, because the train of thought was, disconnected, he was, lost, inside his own world, and, nobody else from around him could get in, he couldn’t, get out, and, you can’t scold a child who’s lost his way, he didn’t mean it.
Taking care of my father like he’s my own child now, when I was younger, he’d changed my diapers and not complained of how dirty I got, not complained of how tiring it was, caring for me, and now, I’d, brushed his teeth, washed his face, bathed, changed his diapers, feed him, taking his out of his wheelchair to the park, to get some sun, to repay him for raising me up, and, heaven had, given me this, period of intimacy with him.
Taking out those age-old photographs, and, it’s, our story time, he’d told me what he remembered, and, as he shook his head at a picture, my turn, to make up the tales, from how glowing he looked in his army days, the hardships from building up the dam, how he was so distraught, going back to China, to fix up the ancestors’ graves, to his grandkids being born, the storyline would change every now and then, he’d become, the director of the stories, and, so what if, he’d mixed up the facts, the prime time soaps are messed up as well.
If, a foreign hired helper can take good care of grandma and grandpa, then, how can I pale by comparison, to an outsider?
Sometimes, my dad would gaze toward me and stated, “It’s been hard on you!”, and I knew, that he was, lucid for the moment’s time, “Not at all, I love being here with you, when you get better, we’ll take your grandkids out.” His eyes twinkled, and I’d felt, heart wrenching, he had always been, a giant to me, carried what others can’t carry, irreplaceable.
And, our relationship ended, two days after Father’s Day, I don’t have a father anymore, and, from here on out, Father’s Day is, just another day on the calendar.
So, this woman accompanied her father, and was impacted by the progressions of his Alzheimer’s, and, Alzheimer’s is really hard, on EVERYBODY who’s around the individual diagnosed, because, it’s a disease that affects the whole family, but, all you can do, is to hold on tight, to those memories that you and your loved ones shared…
Life, the Obstacle Course 