The brain does not compute.
Every Tuesday and Friday I have a standing lunch date with my dad. On Tuesdays we go to Arby's, where he gets the Classic with the au jus dip and fills a free water cup with stolen lemonade. On Fridays we go to Texas Roadhouse, where he gets a 6 oz. sirloin, medium rare, a baked sweet potato with extra cinnamon butter, a side of cole slaw, and a 10 oz. Boston Lager.
Most days, we have the same conversation, at least on his side. He'll ask, "How are the girls?" and I'll give him a run down on the doings of my wife and daughter. His response, depending my answer is either "Oh no," or "that's good," followed invariably by "Scooter's fine. He went dumpy-poo this morning." Scooter is the aging Pomeranian that he brought with him to assisted living a couple of years ago. I'll tell him about my boring life and ask him what he's been up to, a question that leads to one of three possible outcomes: a) He went to a fitness class at the facility; b) He rode the facility bus to WalMart with other more mobile residents; or C) He spent time with some of his 2,000 girlfriends.
If we're at the steakhouse he'll attempt to flirt with the waitress. "You're too pretty to work here. You should be a model. You're a blonde bombshell. You give me high blonde pressure." The lines are usually delivered one after another in the same breath. Depending on how creeped out the waitress appears, I may leave up to a fifty percent tip to ease the suffering. I used to leave a lot of big tips before convincing him to just say model instead of swimsuit model.
On the drive home he always says, "Well, kiss the girls for me. Pet Copper for me," and as I drop him off he'll say, "Thanks for driving. Bye bye." And that's it.
When he was being assessed on his way into assisted living, it was discovered that he has early dementia. I wasn't surprised to hear it. My mother always protected him and explained things away, but we kids knew something was up. When her cancer came back and she was ticking off the last of her days, she told me on the day after Thanksgiving that she wanted me to come by the house twice so that she could teach me two things. First, how to manage their finances, and second, how to take care of my father. We had the first meeting in mid-December and then she went into the hospital and died.
There were changes before the dementia, though. When I was in sixth grade, my dad got hit by a car in front of my house. He needed surgery to repair his hip and his femur, and in the process of evaluating him it was discovered that he had a brain aneurysm.
I asked my younger brother once if he remembered what my dad was like before the brain surgery. He said he didn't. I remembered, though. He was so active and positive and full of life. He was funny, and there would always be dinner parties at my house, his locally renowned wit serving as the entertainment. He was friends with everyone, well connected, and a sought after surgeon.
After his brain surgery he was a different man. He became tired and depressed. The ability to judge between what was appropriate and not appropriate was gone. His hands shook, so performing surgery was out of the question. Most of my dad was still there but much had vanished, never to return. His speech fell into a pattern and we started having the same conversations often. I think my brother developed a lot of resentment toward this different man. I didn't. I was sad and felt as though something had been stolen from me.
Last week my dad surprised me by breaking the pattern. On Tuesday, he began telling me about his grandparents who owned a decal factory in Chicago. He wanted to learn more about them, and he had seen a commercial for a website that provided help with tracing the branches of one's family tree. I wrote things down as fast as I could, recording names and dates as quickly as he could give them to me. I went home and signed him up on the site, and on Friday I returned with a user name and password for him to use to access the site from the computer in his room. He looked at me funny, then told the waitress that she was too pretty to work there and should be a swimsuit model instead.
I left a twenty-dollar tip and took him home.
Most days, we have the same conversation, at least on his side. He'll ask, "How are the girls?" and I'll give him a run down on the doings of my wife and daughter. His response, depending my answer is either "Oh no," or "that's good," followed invariably by "Scooter's fine. He went dumpy-poo this morning." Scooter is the aging Pomeranian that he brought with him to assisted living a couple of years ago. I'll tell him about my boring life and ask him what he's been up to, a question that leads to one of three possible outcomes: a) He went to a fitness class at the facility; b) He rode the facility bus to WalMart with other more mobile residents; or C) He spent time with some of his 2,000 girlfriends.
If we're at the steakhouse he'll attempt to flirt with the waitress. "You're too pretty to work here. You should be a model. You're a blonde bombshell. You give me high blonde pressure." The lines are usually delivered one after another in the same breath. Depending on how creeped out the waitress appears, I may leave up to a fifty percent tip to ease the suffering. I used to leave a lot of big tips before convincing him to just say model instead of swimsuit model.
On the drive home he always says, "Well, kiss the girls for me. Pet Copper for me," and as I drop him off he'll say, "Thanks for driving. Bye bye." And that's it.
When he was being assessed on his way into assisted living, it was discovered that he has early dementia. I wasn't surprised to hear it. My mother always protected him and explained things away, but we kids knew something was up. When her cancer came back and she was ticking off the last of her days, she told me on the day after Thanksgiving that she wanted me to come by the house twice so that she could teach me two things. First, how to manage their finances, and second, how to take care of my father. We had the first meeting in mid-December and then she went into the hospital and died.
There were changes before the dementia, though. When I was in sixth grade, my dad got hit by a car in front of my house. He needed surgery to repair his hip and his femur, and in the process of evaluating him it was discovered that he had a brain aneurysm.
I asked my younger brother once if he remembered what my dad was like before the brain surgery. He said he didn't. I remembered, though. He was so active and positive and full of life. He was funny, and there would always be dinner parties at my house, his locally renowned wit serving as the entertainment. He was friends with everyone, well connected, and a sought after surgeon.
After his brain surgery he was a different man. He became tired and depressed. The ability to judge between what was appropriate and not appropriate was gone. His hands shook, so performing surgery was out of the question. Most of my dad was still there but much had vanished, never to return. His speech fell into a pattern and we started having the same conversations often. I think my brother developed a lot of resentment toward this different man. I didn't. I was sad and felt as though something had been stolen from me.
Last week my dad surprised me by breaking the pattern. On Tuesday, he began telling me about his grandparents who owned a decal factory in Chicago. He wanted to learn more about them, and he had seen a commercial for a website that provided help with tracing the branches of one's family tree. I wrote things down as fast as I could, recording names and dates as quickly as he could give them to me. I went home and signed him up on the site, and on Friday I returned with a user name and password for him to use to access the site from the computer in his room. He looked at me funny, then told the waitress that she was too pretty to work there and should be a swimsuit model instead.
I left a twenty-dollar tip and took him home.
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