Dec. 5th 2009

12/05/09

Dad took us on an imaginary train journey last night. He was sitting at the dining room table while I cooked dinner and he started asking “are we getting off the train in New York or Boston?” He obviously thought we were on a Northeast Corridor train, heading north.

At first Brianna tried to explain that we were in New York, in his apartment, and not on a train, but it wasn’t getting through, so I decided we should play along. There’s a fancy name for this in Alzheimer’s research, but I can’t remember it. “We’re going to New York,” I told him. This satisfied him for a while. “Is the train moving?” he asked. “Do you feel it moving?” I asked back, not knowing what the correct answer would be. “No,” he said. “We’re in the station,” Kate S. chimed in. “What are we going to do in New York?” asked Dad. “Have dinner,” I told him. “What if it’s all full?” He was worried. “We have reservations,” I explained. Next, he began to worry about his luggage. “It’ll be delivered to your apartment,” we told him. “How much does that cost?” he wanted to know. “It’s included in the price of your ticket,” Kate S. assured him.

Dad always loved trains – they were his preferred mode of transportation, even if he was traveling cross-country- and when his mother was elderly and widowed, he used to practically commute between his life in New York and Boston, the Amtrak stop closest to Gloucester, so it makes sense that his imaginary travels involve trains, too.

We made one surprising discovery last night – the day before, Dad had been so tormented by a snatch of song stuck in his head that I decided to try to overpower it with another song. The only thing that came to mind was “Row, row, row your boat,” so I sang the first line, and Dad joined in on the second, humming along. Tonight, I decided to show Kate S. and Brianna, so I sang it again – Dad didn’t join in on the 2nd line, so I stopped singing, and then Dad piped up and sang the last line, words and all, “Life is but a dream.” How true that is for him these days.