Disappearing Memories

As each day goes by in this world without you, I hold on to the hope that your memory will last in my mind forever...

The one year anniversary of you leaving me is here, and I can't quite place my emotions.  My heart hurts so bad that I can't breathe and just when I think the tears have stopped, another one falls.  I remember the last moment I had with you, and I never would have expected it, but it made me so thankful and grateful that you were mine...

You hadn't spoken to me or even noticed me in years, but that day you wouldn't look away.  You held my hand and looked at me with such regret, you hated to see me cry and it seemed as though you understood the cause.  My heart could never take seeing you the way you were in that place, weak and tired and misplaced.  You weren't my papa and you had forgotten how to smile.  But you held onto what we had for one last time and showed me that you hadn't forgotten, you told me that you loved me and I knew for the first time that you could never forget that...and I saw that sparkle in your eyes, the one you would get when I walked into the room.  I hated to leave you, afraid that if I did, you wouldn't keep holding on.  But you knew it was time, and you had to make sure, before you went, that I knew you never did forget.

"People with dementia very often seem to see more than we do...to see through things, round things, past things.  Their senses appear, at times, to be differently deployed so that they hear smells, see voices, taste pictures.  They use metaphor as we might use observation.  Their linguistic range, which to us without dementia may appear very strangely configured is also fluid, generously, even lavishly, overlaid with imagery, freed from grammatical or chronological rules.  It is already poetic in essence." -Karen Hayes

There are pamphlets, books, websites...101 ways to deal with a person with Dementia...but none of these things can prepare you for what's to come - how to cope with the day when he cries because he doesn't understand or gets angry because he can't figure out how to unlock the car.  Instructions can't be provided and because we're all such peculiar people every situation is obviously circumstantial.  Some are more sensitive, some aren't affected much at all, and some like my grandfather are extremely aggressive.

On a good day, we could talk about his younger years when he pitched for the Braves, and although it was very untrue, he believed it and when he spoke about the delusive past it made sense.  On a bad day, he couldn't place simple words together and wouldn't know where he was or who he was...and on a very bad day wouldn't open his eyes to try to even figure those things out.  This man, this strong, loving, generous, happy man was replaced with one weak and frail.  And when I looked into his eyes, the man who would never be able to resist a smile had disappeared, it seemed, forever.

I don't understand this disease and I hate it with everything in me.  It took away a man that had more love in his heart than I even knew existed.  But one thing that I am certain of and am thankful for is this...The last thing we ever lose is love.  Our memories may be gone.  Intellect and logic may have diminished.  We may have forgotten your name and where we are or what we are doing.  But we remember love.

Until the day he died, he remembered that love, and he never let it go.