The Right to Forget
My dad is a hero of mine.
He’s also human, which means he’s as flawed as he is magical…
And lately, he’s forgetting.
In fact, he’s forgetting more and more every day and, while I’m of the opinion that at the age of 93 he’s earned the right to forget, he’s still my father…
And witnessing him losing his memories is difficult.
Up until a few years ago, Al remained an itinerant and mostly independent traveler, happily boarding airplanes to spend time with my younger sister Ellen in the Bay Area – or my brother Ralph at his home in Driggs, Idaho on the western side of the Grand Teton range.
He and my mom – who died in September of 2013 after an 8-year Alzheimer’s-driven decline – had been on so many trips that close friends knew that “Where are Al and Judy?” was a more far useful and rewarding question than “How are Al and Judy?”
New Zealand, Alaska, the Galápagos Islands, Japan, Israel – all over Europe…
If a place could be gotten to, they made it a point to go.
They also made it a point to plan at least a couple of trips every year with we four kiddies, later on including our spousal units.
As children we were taken to Maine, California, Florida, the Jersey Shore and, after hosting a Brazilian exchange student for a year, Ellen and I were taken to Brazil whilst relatively fresh out of high school.
Al and Judy infused us with healthy doses of wanderlust, encouraging us to experiment and stray in the best possible ways…
From sampling different regional cuisines to travel to a wild array of cultural experiences, they did their level best to build a familial legacy centered on creating rich, colorful memories…
And watching helplessly as those memories slip away, first from my mother and now from my father – as if witnessing the foundation and walls of a palace once filled with stunning art, music and magic slowly turn to dust – has been deeply sad.
Al still recognizes us and our voices, but on a recent drive through his old neighborhood (he loves the occasional drive around town or out into the countryside) he asked me if Judy had lived with him in the home they’d shared for the better part of twenty years.
That was a tough moment.
The distance we’ve had to keep as a result of the pandemic – the extended periods of isolation and lack of physical touch – has certainly hastened the progress of his dementia, as it has for so many in similar circumstances.
There are many more stories I could share about conversations revisited time and again over the course of the average visit or 20-minute phone call, but like those revisitations, I’d just be saying the same thing.
The good news – for the moment at least – is that Al seems to be retaining much of his eternal optimism and the pleasant disposition that has served as part of the bedrock of his personality.
While I stand by my opinion that, looking over the fence toward his upcoming 94th birthday, he has indeed earned the right to forget, I’m heartbroken over the loss of Dad’s lifetime of well-planned and brilliantly crafted, mindfully curated memories.
And though we still have countless decks of slides from Al and Judy’s globetrotting years and the projector and screen are safely stowed at one family home or another…
The narration will never again be what it was…