warranty

The voice on the other end of the phone is deeply familiar, yet gravellier and less certain. Dad will be 90 years old next April and is in the middle stages of Alzheimer's disease. A big, funny, kind man who worked hard to help raise eight children and then faithfully looked after my bedridden mother in her dying years, my Dad is now small and frail, and very forgetful.

When I call him on the phone, by necessity I must greet him with "Hi Dad, its Jay." It would be cruel, of course, to play the guessing game on the phone with a 90 year old with Alzheimer's, so by nature of my greeting he knows who's on the other end of the line and manages to hold that in his memory for at least the length of the phone call. For that reason, my experience is different from that of my sisters. He forgets who they are sometimes when they visit him in person or he forgets their children's names. We repeat names and dates and current news as much as possible in conversations, hoping they will sink in.

There are things he remembers and things he has no grasp of. During my phone conversation with him this past Sunday afternoon, when I mentioned that we were coming up on the anniversary of my Mom's death, he was surprised. He remembered well that the anniversary date is November 5th. But he thought at that moment it was springtime. When I told him it was October, he snickered, "Well, I heard the birds chirping." He often covers his confusion with humor.

My father's sense of humor is, in fact, one of his strongest characteristics. So is his love for my mom. My dad was crazy about her. He loved her very deeply, missed her profoundly after her death and whenever we speak of her he still gets a little choked up. Of course, being a man of a certain generation, he tries to deflect the emotions, usually with humor. He makes a joke and changes the subject fairly quickly after only a few moments of swallowed tears. But for those few moments that he allows himself to have those feelings I know that his memory is serving him and I'm grateful.

"It's been ten years since her death," I mentioned. "Can you believe it?"

"Oh my, no," he murmured, feeling his loss both of her and of time.

"I'm amazed that it's already ten years," I repeated.

"Yep," he choked, and paused. And then he added, "I guess I didn't read the warranty."

His remark took me by surprise and I couldn't help laughing heartily. "Well Dad," I chuckled, "I'm happy you didn't! I'm happy you and mom just took it all as it came."

It's bittersweet. My sisters and brother and I are holding onto Dad's person as much as we can until the disease steels him forever. He can forget what day it is, but as long as he remembers me, and my mom, I still have him. As long as his humor is there, I still have him.