Fading like a photo
I once had a colleague whose dad had been suffering from Alzheimer's. When he died I expected her to upset but she needed no consoling. There is of course no 'right way' to grieve, but in this case she seemed indifferent to her dad's death. At the time I didn't understand how this could be. I knew that Alzheimer's was a cruel disease, stealing memories from people, but I didn't understand how it could make a child seem unmoved by a parent's passing.
A few years later and it's me with the father with Alzheimer's. My mum is the one who bears the brunt of the decline on a daily basis, thrust unwillingly into the role of carer at a point in her life when they both should be enjoying the fruits of a lifetime's labours.
We, their children, only see the edited highlights of this most brutal of second childhoods. Often we see him at his best, in much the same way as a child can be on best behaviour in company and be a nightmare at home. But more and more he is unable to put on the act of normality. He is unaware that this role even needs playing.
Alzheimer's doesn't just steal memories it changes personalities. The person you love isn't simply losing the ability to remember what happened yesterday, they change into a different person. A mild mannered person can become prone to anger. A confident person can become riven with anxiety.
In the process of helping one of my brothers to compile a memory book for my dad I have been going through photo albums. In these photos are reminders of a life, a family, hopes and dreams. But also of the cruelty of this disease. You can't help but juxtapose the man of yesteryear with the man of today. The photos themselves provide a metaphor for his decline. At first the colours fade, reflecting the subtle changes to his character. Still clearly the same man but off-colour. And then the sharpness of the image goes. The clarity of old no longer there. After the sharpness, the details start to fade, until you are left with a dad shaped image devoid of the character and colour he once possessed. You can tell it was him once, but all you can see is what isn't there any more. The person you are left with is little more than a silhouette.
When all of the colour, all of the sharpness and all of the detail goes from his life you have lost everything that made dad dad. What is there left to mourn?
So now, painfully, I understand why my colleague reacted as she did. I don't know how I shall react when my time comes to bury my father. I suspect I shall be less phlegmatic than my colleague. It will be one final goodbye after a succession of goodbyes. And then I shall try to remember the man he was before the disease took hold. A man of colour, of detail, of sharp edges.
Labels: alzheimers