Birthday Boy

Hello, again. It has been quite a while since I have blogged. Mea culpa. Just a brief note before I begin. Someday I will learn how to edit my own bio on the side panel, but until then I will just make a note about changes in it. My bride and I no longer have a child at home. She has graduated and been married. We also now have 4 grandchildren. Does that make us a double 'tween generation. We see our children several times a week and two of our grandchildren also several times a week. (2 of them sadly live too far away.) Our home remains the focal family point for 4 generations. Our youngest son is getting married in 3 months so we will add a new daughter-in-law to the mix. In addition to family my employment status has changed since my last blog. I have taken on a new title at work with the requisite amount of new work to go along with it. I also changed titles as my other job, but that didn't increase the work load but actually gave me a slightly lighter load.

Last week it was Dad's birthday. He was 81 when he came to us. Now he is 84. Reflecting on that is rather overwhelming. We never thought he would even be here 6 months. Then we stretched it to a year. Wow! Time has flown! His memory has failed increasingly in that time. He has forgotten that he has a wife in a nursing home and still plans to marry his new sweetheart at the adult day care center. He has been talking about that now for 7 months but has forgotten that as well. He still tells us that he only met her there a few weeks ago, about 3 or 4 he will say. He still gets angry occasionally about having to go to the center, but his anger dissipates rapidly unlike when he first came and could hang on to it for days on end. His sister, who also suffers from Alzheimer's, is going into a nursing home soon. I suggested that he might like to go there and live with her, but that upset him a lot, so that is on hold for now.

We had a big party for him on his birthday. There were 12 people here staggered out over a period of time so that he wouldn't be too overwhelmed at once. He talked about that for a few days. He kept saying how much he really enjoyed it. Based on recent experience with his memory we didn't know if he would remember it the next morning, but he did, and the day after that as well. He still doesn't know my bride's name, though. Nor does he remember most people's names, family or otherwise. We never know what he will or won't retain from moment to moment. He got a call for his birthday. When I asked how he liked talking to that person, he said, "I had no idea who it was, but it was nice to talk." A friend came by and gave him a card. This friend sees him weekly. We have called this friend by name for 2 years and put his name on the daily activity board whenever he is coming. He looked at the card, just given to him, saw the name and asked, "Who is _____?" For all that he will pick up a conversation he started yesterday and continue it from where he left off. Of course, we have no idea what he is talking about for a while, and by then he has forgotten what he said. If he says something that we can't understand or follow and we ask him what he just said, overwhelmingly he has no idea. But, he remembered the party and he remembered who came. We are just glad that we could create for him a moment of joy that had a little adhesive on the back.