DAD DEMENTIA

It’s funny that I can’t remember exactly when my dad had the car accident.  Funny because that is when things started to unravel for him.  I can remember precisely where I was when president Kennedy was shot.  I was in third grade at a Catholic school sitting in a wooden desk with my prim and proper school uniform as the loudspeaker in the room made the announcement.  I remember Mrs. Mayrose crying and I knew something was dreadfully wrong even though I couldn’t fully comprehend.  Perhaps that is the way it was with my father.  The accident was just the start of something none of us could fully understand.

So it is with dementia.  The first glimpses are hard to notice, especially when one is so far away from the parent.  Had things been going wrong for a long time?  Did my mother fail to notice the signs and pass it off as forgetfulness?  For whatever reason, the car accident moved us forward and eventually to the diagnosis of dementia.

I’m not a doctor and still don’t have a working definition of the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s.  What I do know is that it is important to document the demise since so many of us boomers will be dealing with aging parents and the loss of their minds.

But let me go back to that accident, the one I can’t remember. As I did my research, I found out that my dad had the accident back in 2003 on a day when he was driving to church.  After his retirement, he went to morning mass every day at 7:00 a.m.  On this morning, he sat at a stop sign and swears he looked both ways.  When he accelerated, he was hit by a car that clearly had the right of way. He stepped away from the accident with minimal cuts and scrapes. 

On the outside, we all felt grateful that he suffered so little.  On the inside, we had no idea that this event would precipitate the process of going mad.  It was not until his strange emails started coming that I knew something was terribly wrong.  I tried to ignore the clues. Is it because I didn't want to know? Or that I was in total denial?  Now that he's gone, I don't know that it makes any difference.