Say My Name

Yesterday started off difficult and ended well.

When we got to the a retirement Home, Dad had been asleep. When you wake up a dementia patient they have difficulty knowing what is reality and what was a dream. The first hour was brutal and difficult and I wanted to run away. It is never fun to watch your once very strong father cry…and that is all I will say about that.

We got him distracted with a Pepsi…for whatever reason, he’s obsessed with them. The colder, the better. The nurses tell me they bribe him to get out of bed with one…and you know what that’s ok.

My Dad has been getting up around 5 am ever since I could remember. He’s always been a Folgers man. Takes his coffee black and hot…and that’s how it always was. If he was feeling fancy we would have Maxwell House.

The retirement home Dad is in right now we don’t love but the nurses are very sweet and Dad likes to try to take off at night so we have to have a lock down facility. He is taken care of and he is clean and they are good to him.

My Dad has now taken it upon himself to make sure that the nurses know that his daughters are all teens and someday he might let us all get married…he’s not sure about that.

He apparently talks a lot about me and my sister Ronda and Kathie which made me so happy.

Yesterday for the first time in a year he said my name and he recognized me. I asked him who I was named after and he pointed to himself and said ME!

We were trying to move him to another facility but there are none that are lock down so now we are going to start moving some stuff in there he likes…whether my Mother likes it or not. She gets upset because she keeps saying she can take him home and take care of him….but she cannot. So why we try to help our Father out….our Mother is making life just as difficult….and so it goes.

We will continue to press on, and for today we are grateful for good laughter with the nurses….and that for today…Dad remembered my name.