Fading

It had been a long time since I have missed my regular weekly post, if I ever have, but last week I missed. There is a reason. Life, or rather the end of life, takes priority. Four and a half years ago, my father realized that his memory was just starting to fade and wrote his memories down before it was too late. Now, his memory is nearly gone, perhaps totally gone. Three days ago, I had what has become a typical conversation with him. He could not remember where he was or who was the nurse’s aid in his hospital room. He thanked me for visiting and was shocked when I mentioned that it was my fourth visit that day, but moments later he described a barn that his sister and brother-in-law had owned decades ago. I knew what he was talking about. Some of my childhood memories are of that barn. He asked a question he’d asked already ten times in the last hour then said that he’d be rich if he had a dime for every time he asked that question. He remembered forgetting.

That is the way it has been. One moment he couldn’t remember that his siblings have all passed away, the next moment he would remember an obscure and verifiable fact or mention how proud his father would be to know that my family and I live in the house that he built. A moment later he asked me where I lived. He looked at the whiteboard on the opposite wall, noticed the date and realized that he had just had a birthday. Yes, Dad, you have lived a long time. The next morning he recognized a niece who visited and called her by name. A bit later he knew that my mother and my sister entered the room. When I entered about half an hour later, he clearly knew that someone entered the room and I think he knew that it was me. I can’t be sure that he has been aware of my visits since.

A few weeks ago, after his last trip to the emergency room, he was tested by an occupational therapist. His memory was confirmed to be virtually gone, but his reasoning was still intact. He could count backwards from 100 by sevens faster than the therapist, but he couldn’t remember where he lived—functioning reason without the ability to remember what to reason about.

Preserving memories and reconstructing pasts is what I do. I have the nearly forty typed pages of his memories sitting on the desk next to me. How strange that I have them and he no longer does. I have my memories of him too, but soon, perhaps very soon, he will be gone. He cannot remember his past. His future has nearly run out.

Toward the end of a meeting with the hospice nurse two days ago, I got a message from my son. He had already pitched the first inning of his first playoff game. Would I be there soon? The nurse said something about the split we live with at times like these and said that I needed to go. So Dad, there is the future. It just sent me a text.