Live in the Moment

****Author's note: This is a completely raw draft. I made tiny revisions as I wrote it, but after it came out of my fingers, I couldn't go through it again.****

Dad and I went to the Houston Zoo in November. I knew he wouldn’t remember the visit later, so I took a bunch of pictures and created a book in Shutterfly for him. When he unwrapped it on Christmas, he seemed a bit puzzled. Mom asked, “Do you recognize anyone in it?” He turned to the first page, a picture of the two of us, and said that he did, “But I have no idea when this was.”

Like I said, I knew when I planned the trip, when we were there, when we left, as I edited the pictures and made the book that he wouldn’t remember the visit. Hearing him say it as he looked at the book was as striking to my soul as getting smacked in the head with a hard-thrown softball was when I was a kid. I had thought—hoped—that the pictures would bring it back to him.

Nothing.

It was no different from him looking at a picture in the newspaper. Well, I guess a bit different as he did know the two of us, but there was no connection to the action.

I sometimes hear people say to live in the moment. I know what they mean, and it’s good advice for many situations. Dad really does live in the moment now. His total reality is whatever he is experiencing at that moment, and it’s however he filters it through the functioning brain cells for memory.

He can know it is the two of us in the car, but as we head wherever we are going, there is no telling what neighborhood he will be in. Sometimes the Richmond or Sugar Land neighborhood is where he grew up. “I used to know lots of people who lived there,” he says as he points out the window, “but they’re probably all dead now.” It might be, “I had relatives who lived in that house,” when he sees a white wooden-sided home on a block foundation that is miles and miles from where his aunts and uncles lived. On the way to my church, it was, “I used to know someone who lived right there,” pointing to some relatively new house, “but I can’t remember who.”

As long as whatever we are doing isn’t too loud (grimacing at the level and/or making rude comments about the volume and who chose it) or doesn’t require more than a few minutes of concentration (“Bored.”), he seems to enjoy the moment. He loved being at the zoo. He enjoyed seeing the bluebonnets—and of course, all the places where to him everyone he ever knew lived. He was fully focused on the play before Easter. We have good conversations over a meal out. The Christmas lights in the neighborhood were wondrous. “They’re getting more and more of them!” That was his comment after New Year’s when few yards still had decorations out.

The moments seem to be getting shorter and shorter. No. They are getting shorter and shorter. They are also encompassing more and more areas. The questions of where we’re going or what’s for dinner come more frequently. He comments that he hasn’t seen a movie in ages and wants to go, not remembering that he was absolutely miserable, and made me and Mom miserable, when we saw one late last summer because it was too loud for him. “You don’t like how loud it is.” “I don’t?” He eats the food on his plate, looks at the serving dishes and asks if he had any of whatever it was he just finished chewing. “Why isn’t the light on outside?” referring to the one on the garage. “Because you didn’t turn it on.”

We still have many positives. He knows us. He can do some stuff for himself. Mom can leave him alone for short amounts of time. When he finally settles on a TV show, he is engaged with it, talking to the people on the screen that shows he understands what is happening. He asks about my dogs and laughs like crazy when I tell him what the Wonder Twins have been up to. He knew he was supposed to have a Christmas present for Mom. He works his way through the comics and still marks some that he understands. He wants to get out of the house to do stuff. He knows my daughter Meghan when he sees her, even though she doesn’t come but every few weeks.

Enter his reality. Live in his moment. We are still learning to meet him where he is. And that keeps moving. We’re also learning that we cannot always bring him to where we are. His mind doesn’t work like that any longer.

Live in the moment. Take what we have for today. For this hour. For this minute, sometimes. Don’t dwell on what we used to have with him, who he used to be. Memories are good. They are sustaining. But they can hurt. Don’t focus too hard on where we are going, who he is becoming. It’s not a pretend it’s not occurring. It’s avoiding obsessing over it. We know generally what will happen, but not the specifics, how much he will lose how fast. There’s only so much preparation we can make physically: the powers of attorney, the will and end-of-care directives signed. Or mentally for that matter. The knowing because of what I see when I visit at the memory care facility or talk with people at the caregivers support group doesn’t help much when the knowing becomes my reality.

Live in the moment. Treasure the grace of the tiny gifts of normalcy. Gather strength for the next moment that may well be a new, unwanted normal. Live in it together.