Reunited

After 26 days without being able to go see my dad because of her back pain, Mom got to go for a short visit yesterday. My sister drove her to Shiny Meadows and they sat with Dad for about half an hour.

My expectation was this: He would see Mom and say "Where ya been?" This is his usual question. I kept telling Mom that he has no concept of time passing anymore, and when he saw her, there would be no way for his brain to register that she'd been away for almost a month.

Being apart for that long, for them, is almost obscene. It hasn't happened since 1944. I had fantasies about Dad seeing Mom walk into Shiny Meadows and reaching his arms out to her, or saying "I missed you." I wouldn't actually want that, since it would mean he had been shaken by her absence. And the realization of that would chew into Mom like a trap on a fox's leg. So I let the daydreams go.

But here is the way of Alzheimer's:

Candy: Mom, what did he say when he saw you?

Mom: Nothing.

Candy: He didn't say "Where ya been?"

Mom: No. He didn't say anything.


I know he still takes comfort in her presence. I know he senses that she is important to him. It is just such a long trip, that distance from his quiet, perplexed face that has nothing more to say, to the core of him, where his love for my mom, unaware of illness or the passing of years, or the confinement of a wheelchair, is a meteor shower blazing across the black night.