And so life goes on
This is one of those posts where one feels slightly sensitive because its subject is a family matter touching upon the collective travails of all concerned when possessing one or more elderly parents. In this situation there’s a balance to be trod between being candid, open (and hopefully positive/insightful) on the one hand and – some might feel – somehow disrespectful to one’s nearest and dearest who are inevitably (to use a hackneyed phrase) embarked upon a journey which has only one destination, on the other.
These days my father is reaching a stage already familiar to the family because my mother previously trod the same path before she passed on about a decade ago. As an elderly person gradually succumbs to mental frailty different parts of their mind deteriorate at different speeds.
For a period somehow their human instinct, or perhaps social skills acquired from childhood and beyond, enable them to disguise that they’re gradually falling off the pace.
In my mother’s case, for example, she might begin talking to me about my eldest niece in a manner which clearly betrayed the fact she couldn’t remember her name.
After a while I would (as I thought) try to assist by saying “Her name is Janet, Mum …” and she would then reply “I know that, I was just getting her confused with [her sister] Bridget”. And then the moment was gone.
It was the kind of exchange that, had it involved a third party, e.g. a visiting neighbour, would have passed without the other person noticing anything untoward.
But for a close family member knowing that she had dementia, it was just another forewarned milestone on my mother’s progress down her slippery slope.
Fast-forward to my subject de jour.
During the past year my father’s ability to initiate and/or contribute to conversations has been slowly declining. That bald statement does neither him nor the issue justice. He can still do both – and upon occasion does – but the prompts for him doing so are reducing in number and becoming repetitious.
For example, when you arrive to join him, whether it be for a day or a weekend, he tends to fire out questions metaphorically filed under the heading Questions To Ask Upon Greeting A Relative in his brain locker – e.g. “Did you have a good journey?” and/or “What was the traffic like?”.
However, the giveaway (for those in the know) is that he deploys these even if you have just walked in the door laden down with food shopping and travelling cases, exclaiming in exasperation “How are you, Dad? We’ve had a hell of a journey on the way down …”
Further, his ability to concentrate upon and follow a conversation is diminished, as is his ability to remember information received.
Revisiting for a moment his mode of questioning, this aspect is epitomised by the repetition. It is almost as if, having been to his Questions To Ask Upon Greeting A Relative folder to select for example the query “What time did you set off?” there is no connection between him asking it and then taking on board the answer. Thus the exchange might run:
“What time did you set off?”
“Oh, a few minutes past eight, Dad. We’d done our shopping the night before, so we were ahead of the game in that respect, but then we got caught up slightly in traffic coming along the A62 …”
“So what time did you set off then?”
Thus, if you see what I mean, his mode is to deploy his standard questions (one after the other) without ever really listening to any of the answers.
Similar now tends to occur with his newspaper reading. In days of yore he was always a great one for reading both the weekday and weekend newspapers from cover to cover. Now he merely uses them as props in order to give the impression that the reason he might not be contributing to any ongoing conversation is simply because he’s concentrating upon some fascinating article he’s come across.
Thus yesterday he sat on a bench in the garden idly flicking through the pages of the Mail On Sunday pretending to read them. For three hours. At one point he rose and went inside for that purpose which our family refers to as a ‘pit stop’. When he returned, resumed his seat on the bench and made to pick up the Mail On Sunday again, he was asked whether he’d like to switch and take a look at a different newspaper. His reply was “No thank you, I haven’t read this one yet …” and continued to peruse it for another hour and a half.
As I tried to hint above, these are not exactly revelations to rank alongside that of the conversion of St Paul upon the road to Damascus. Rather they resemble a couple of ‘windows’ throwing a little light upon advancing daily life as it is lived by elderly human beings.
