Times of Quiet Repose...

I sat outside with my dad last evening.  It was one of those lovely summer nights where it was not hot and not cool, but just felt almost like the air was kissing your skin.  We sat on the portico at his memory care facility which sounds not so nice, but it is.  It is very nice.  New, beautiful.  He mentioned, more to himself than to me, that the place was quite beautiful.  Good to know he still has an appreciation for beauty...even in his diminished capacity.

We sat outside waiting for the hummingbirds to fly by in their never ending quest for nectar.  So busy all the time, such a contrast to his life and his activity level...

It is hard to “talk” to him.  He isn’t really capable of responding...and when he does respond it rarely makes sense.  His responses are garbled words that have no meaning or are not really words at all, they are really just sounds that would not match any conversation we would ever have.

But he was initiating...so I responded as best I could.  He would talk about people that were not there, and events that were not happening...except in his own mind and I did my best to follow along.  Mostly I asked if he enjoyed something or if that was fun.  His answers were wholly unrelated most of the time. However, regardless, he was engaged and even though I knew it was the sundowning talking, I was happy he was initiating conversation, it was kind of was immaterial that it made no sense. A lot of communion can happen when you lose your expectations...

After awhile of very idle chit chat, we fell into a quiet repose. He sitting in his chair, his mind looping through whatever is going on in there.  I am not sure how much he understands, his dementia holding him fast to the here and now with brief forays into the distant past, at least as near as I can figure.

It was almost surreal to sit at his side, just the two of us.  So much of our lives I think we avoided moments like that.  I know I did.  I did not enjoy time alone with him.  It was always fraught and mostly just waiting for the next disagreement.  I didn’t want to have this relationship with him, it was just our default.

But last night we watch the day draw to a close with a quiet repose that was absent for the whole of our lives.  And it was lovely.  And for a moment there, I had a new experience with my dad, one that only dementia could grant us.  I know that dementia takes it toll and its long reaching effects are life altering and heart breaking, but last night it gave us something I have never experienced before...a moment of stillness and peace with a man who I have rarely had that with the whole of my life.

As I drove home I was overwhelmed by the idea that dementia, just like everything else in this life, takes but it also gives.  Perhaps there is quite the imbalance, but there is a give and take that is perhaps overlooked.  And last night, dementia gave us something that we could not ever seem to find when he was in his right mind: an ease and comfort with each other, that quiet, solemn repose that was sought by each of us but ever elusive in our regular lives.  Instead that tranquil serenity could only be delivered by the ever advancing dementia...

I guess more proof that life is always taking and giving, destroying and rebuilding.  And I remain in awe and a tentative observer of it all.

Again, still...