Am I your...?

Today's lunch conversation:

Am I your ... oh, I can't, never mind, I lost it...

No, no, finish the sentence. Am...I...your...what?

Are you my...

No, no, this is you talking. Am I your...what?

(she shakes her head in confusion)

Okay, repeat after me: Am I...

Am I...

Your...

Your...

Am I your...what?

Am I your ... your ... wife?

YES! Yes you are!

I am?

Yes.

Since when?

This always blows your mind -- since 30 years ago.

Oh, I'm soooo sorry...

She tells me it's going to take a while for this to sink in. She excuses herself to visit the washroom. She returns and apologizes for asking so many questions, but everything is so new to her and she's trying to make sense of it. I say that's fine, ask away.

So, you and me ... we're brother and sister?

No, husband and wife.

Really? Oh, that's so much better!

Better for you, better for me, and REALLY better for our daughter.

Annie! Is Annie okay?

Annie's fine.

We finish our sandwiches and our cookies and walk out to the car. Halfway home, the questions start again:

I'm sorry to ask so many questions, but I'm still getting used to all this...

That's fine. What do you want to know?

You and me ... we're brother and sister?

Something new

Visual problems. She says "everything looks different." We headed out to lunch in the car but turned around and came back because it was very upsetting to her that trees, cars and buildings didn't look the way they were supposed to. Back in the kitchen, the canned goods in the pantry didn't look right. Now the room in which I work, where she spends 90 percent of her time, doesn't look right to her.

I knew this day would come. The Alzheimer's Association says, "As the disease progresses, changes in vision may make it difficult for the person to distinguish colors and understand what is being seen."

An email from downstairs

Last night I received an email from Ted. He sent it from his bedroom downstairs. It read:

what may said when i came home:

she pulled me aside and said that some of your clients were from the mafia. she sort of suggested i take adam somewhere safe. she said something along the lines of they came in and took over the house. she said not to tell you. just then someone banged on the door and i got really scared!...but it was you.

pretty weird huh? at least she didn't want adam to hear any of the mafia stuff. when adam actually came near she stopped, and it was at this moment she had started talking about how the mafia owned the house, and then after adam went away she was able to pick right back up on where she left off.

And every night we tells the tale of history back...

I had just gone to sleep last night when I heard May getting out of bed. I asked where she was going and she said "I'm going to sleep with Adam." I told her to stay with me and she said, "I don't even know who you are." I said I was her husband and she said, "You're kidding. Since when?" I said since 30 years ago. She didn't believe me. So I walked her back:

Do you remember the farm?

Yes.

I was there.

Do you remember Annie?

Annie, yes.

She's our daughter.

We made Annie?

Yes we did. And she will be 28 years old on her next birthday, so it's a good thing we've been married 30 years.

She said she just couldn't make sense of it. We stayed awake for about 30 minutes trying to make our history stick in her head. We made only a little progress. This morning we were back on the "this is MY house" track. I was taking a bath and she came in and sat down on the floor next to the tub. She said she needed to talk to me and I said okay. "This is MY house," she started. "I've had it for a long time..." She paused and I took the opportunity to say it's OUR house, your name AND my name are on the deed. "I'd like to see that deed," she said.

MY house, MY things

She wakes me up crying at 5:30 this morning. I ask her what's wrong.

"This has been my house forever, and now all these people are here, coming and going, and they're taking my stuff. (She waves her hand slowly up and down toward the bookcase a few feet from her face.) That's all mine, and I've had it forever. And now all these people, I don't know who they are, they're taking it from me."

"I don't see any people. There's just you and me here. Adam and Ted are downstairs. Adam's been here as long as we have. Ted came last November, and he's not taking anything."

(She stops crying and relaxes a bit, then asks me a question.)

"How did you come here?"

"How did YOU come here?"

"I don't know, I just did, I guess..."

"We came here together."

"We DID?"

"Yes, we found this house together, we bought it together, we moved here together."

"REALLY?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that makes me feel so much better."

The sleep thing

The whole house was asleep at 10 o'clock last night, except for me. I stayed up another hour-and-a half to get some things done. This was to be my night to get eight hours of sleep, which meant I would have to stay down until 7:30 in the morning. I thought I could do that.

At first light, May woke me up to ask if I were going to be home today. I told her I needed more sleep. She woke me up twice again before 6 o'clock, and each time I said I was trying to sleep. After the third incident, she got up and started pacing around the bedroom. It pushed a few buttons for me. "Every day you sleep until 8 o'clock," I said, "while I get six hours of sleep. And now, on the day I could sleep until 8 o'clock, you insist on waking me up." Oddly enough, that didn't help matters. I invited her back to bed.

She was on her knees next to me, leaning forward with head in hands. She said, "I just thought when I got this house, it would be a place where people could come... I think this is my house, I don't even know..."

Her use of the first person pushed another button.

"This is OUR house," I said. "It's not just YOUR house." And from there, we went to this:

"I'm sorry, our house. I just want to stay here."

"I want you to stay here too, but this is a circular argument. You are going to stay here, unless you keep waking me up to tell me you want to stay here."

She managed to laugh through the tears.

"I don't want you to send me away..."

"I'm not going to send you away -- unless you keep waking me up to tell me you don't want to be sent away. If you keep waking me up to tell me you don't want to be sent away, you're going to be sent away. You got that?"

She laughed and nodded, and then all was well. She left the bed and opened the blinds to see if we got the rain that was predicted for last night. And I was wide awake, with another six hours of sleep. But at least they were straight through; I work with a lot of moms of young families who would probably see six hours of sleep as a wonderful gift, and six uninterrupted hours as the lap of luxury.

Daily chat

The constant, daily conversation boils down to this: IF you are my husband, and IF this is my house, I'll be okay. And those are big if's. From there we move on to "if I can stay here" and "if you'll take care of me." And we eventually get around to "but I want to participate in what goes on here" and "I don't want anybody to coming in here to help" and "I don't want to be stuck here all the time." A meal without tears is a rare thing, and a welcome, welcome thing; "huge," as a certain golfer would say.