Mom took Papa with her to the grocery store today. He did fairly well, but on the way home he said, “What if I got a bike and rode it down to Georgetown?” “Dad, that’s crazy. I’m not even going to answer that because it’s never going to happen.” Mom and Papa have an interesting dynamic: she can be more blunt with him than any other family member, and he gives her flack that he wouldn’t give to the rest of us.
“Well,” he said, “I’m going to buy a car and I’m going to drive down.” “Fine, Dad, you do that. And you’ll get arrested and put in a nursing home with all the other Alzheimer’s patients.” *pause* “That went in one ear and out the other.” “Sure, Dad…okay.”
“Does it bother you when I share stuff about Pop?” she asks me. Not really, I reply.
In the movies, aging parents and grandparents with dementia are sweet, doddering old folks that shuffle around aimlessly and never remember your name. In the real world there’s fear and there’s anger. How else would someone respond to losing their home, their independence, and their very grip on reality?
“He has the potential,” Mom says, “To be one of those kind, gentle old folks. But he’s not ready to accept the fact that this is the way things are. He’ll come around in time.”
