I didn't see much of him during the Covid years. He couldn't/wouldn't consistently wear a mask before vaccines were widely available, so I limited our interactions to outdoor meals. After we were both vaccinated, he withdrew for a time. He was hard to catch on the phone, and discouraged visitors to his home out in the country.
This past spring, he finally relented, and agreed to let me come on up to help him with some things around his house. When I got there, I was shocked at the change in his ability to complete routine tasks - suddenly, the TV remotes were too complicated for him to manage. He lost the ability to check voicemail on his flip phone; the same type of phone he's been carrying for well over a decade.
Alarmed, I rallied his family and friends, and we all started to pressure him to move to town, to an independent living apartment. The pressure worked, he moved into his new place the first of May.
From all I read, the dementia road is supposed to be a long, slow decline - I thought we still had time to spend together. He obviously didn't do his reading. He's rapidly been losing ground since moving into the city, and his brain shows no signs of finding its footing.
The change in living quarters unsettled his uneasy status quo; I was stopping over to see him a couple of times a week, and each time I came by, he was a little more lost. The world was confusing. It moved too quickly and things just didn't make sense!
All his people were concerned about his driving; he needed to not drive anymore, but no one quite knew how to convince him to give up his keys. Fortunately, God decided to intervene, and he lost them. Since no one would help him get a new set, the issue resolved itself. Small blessings.
A week after he lost the truck keys, he went for a walk late at night and got lost, just a few blocks from his building. *ouch*
Off to assisted living he went. It was just a few short weeks from there to memory care - he kept trying (and succeeding in his attempts) to escape the building; didn't understand why he was asked to not go out as he pleased. He was pretty sure that the getting lost thing was a one-time anomaly; it surely wouldn't happen again.
I continue to stop by as I can, 2-3 times each week. Conversations with my intelligent, eloquent friend now resemble word salad. I've gotten good at picking through the sentence fragments to get the gist of what he's intending to say, but it leaves me emotionally drained.
This is hard, harder than cleaning up someone else's bed bugs. He is scared and lost, and I can't do a darn thing to help. This sucks!
But, I show up. It's the only thing I CAN do. On my way over, I tamp down that helpless feeling, hide my fears and my tears. I put on a smile, walk in the door, and spend the next few hours doing my best to help him work through his anxiety of the day. I am rarely completely successful, but can usually help him to calm down some; distraction is my friend.
One step at a time, I will walk this road with him as long as he is still here to walk beside me.
Even though it's hard, I know I am doing the right thing. When my rocking chair days arrive (assuming my brain still works when I get there!), I will look back on these days with satisfaction.
Love Is.
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