Boggled

Marie took the knobs off the stove several days ago, and today Kate S. arrived to find Dad, in her words, “boggled” by their disappearance. Hours later, he’s still thinking about it: “Do you know what she did? She took all the knobs off the stove. I can’t imagine why.”

Kate. S. and Brianna arrived at Dad’s before me today – I was at a meeting – and when I got here, they had put on a dvd of Henry Rollins, a comedian. Dad was listening and laughing, even though we had heard this one before – he didn’t remember.

I look over and Dad is fumbling around among the knives and scissors. “What are you looking for?” I ask. “Something to cut my nails with,” he says, reaching for a large knife. I leap out of my seat. “No, Dad, we have something for that,” I say, getting out the fingernail clipper. I demonstrate on one of his nails and he settles down to clip the rest.

“It’s spring,” I tell Dad “time to decide what to plant in the garden.” “Flowers or vegetables?” he asks. “Some of both,” I tell him, “definitely tomatoes.” “Tomatoes but not potatoes? Not potatoes because they come up” and makes a hand gesture depicting a potato plant coming up through the soil. “I don’t have enough room for potatoes, but I’d like a climbing rose to climb up the side of the house.” “Because your house is brick,” he says, “it disturbs the bricks after a while.” “I’ll put a trellis up,” I tell him. “Mucho mas mejor,” he says, surprising me. This is the polyglot Dad of my childhood, slipping from French to English to Spanish with the occasional anglo saxon phrase thrown in for good measure - we don’t hear much from him but English these days.

“You know what I should do?” asks Dad. “I should make up a book of telephone numbers. I don’t know a single telephone number.” “Dad, this is your phone book,” I say, sliding it across the table to him. He reads the cover “B-I-G P-R-I-N-T. Big Print.” He starts flipping through. “Wow. This really is big print.”

“How long have I been jittering with this?” he asks suddenly. “Having trouble with your memory?” I ask, cautiously. “Yes.” “A few years.” I try to keep my voice from shaking. “But more and more?” “ Yes, it’s getting worse.” “Do a lot of people have this?” “About 4 million.” This seems to satisfy him.

He’s definitely getting more aware of his memory problems. The other day Marie forgot something and said, out loud, “I need a pill for my brain.” “So do I,” chimed in Dad, who had been sitting quietly. “Dad, you took the pills for your brain. They gave you bad dreams, so you stopped, remember? There was the one where the walls were closing in and there was the one where you hurt your shoulder struggling.” I don’t mention that, aside from the dreams, the medications didn’t seem to do much of anything. “Oh yeah,” says Dad, “I remember that.” “The only medicines for the brain that are left are experimental, they’re just trying them out.” “I don’t want them to poison me,” says Dad. “They’re not testing them to see if they’re poisonous,” I tell him, “they’re testing them to see how well they work.” “In that case,” says Dad, “I’m game. Count me in.”