We took Dad out for dinner last night, we being Me, Mo, my Mom (Dad’s ex), and of course Dad. I called him in advance to see if he was free and he was very “befuddled” on the phone. And that’s his exact word, “befuddled”. When I queried him on what he was getting at he asked me to help him find something out, specifically what happened to the house? To make a long story short he was wanting to know how we moved him out of his house (not sure which one even now) and why he didn’t see any papers or have to sign anything. He wondered what happened to all his things such as tools etc.. I tried to calm him and promised we could talk about it when we picked him up.
I was a bit distracted after that and thought about what may have been happening to him as we drove into Trail. It bothered me, made me sad, and talking about it to Mo and Mom didn’t really help. I think Mom still bears him some grudge after all these years, even though it’s not overt or malicious. She seems to have little patience for his condition and that bothers me on some level as well.
At any rate we arrived at his place and picked him up from his room, he was still a bit addled and shakey, but we collected his things and took him out to the car. On the way he began to weep silently, saying he didn’t know if he’d be here (there) tomorrow, inferring he may die that night. I think between his realization his memory was going and his loss of identity at the moment he became overwhelmingly sad and his grief came through.
Dinner went well for the most part and his mood improved. He was still at a bit of a loss regarding the move from the house but that occured over 25 years ago and even I couldn’t remember how it went down. We took him back to his place after and Mo took him up. On the way out she discussed it with the on-call nurse and they would check on him later to see how he fared.
I called him this morning and he still seemed to be a bit at a loss but much better on the whole. This is likely just the beginning of the end. It hurts my heart but I guess it’s just life, sad but true!