Fading

I had a bad dream last night. I saw you walking down the street and yelled out to you. You didn’t hear me, so I thought. I continued to yell, even calling you Jack. You turned slightly, looked right into my eyes, and continued on until I couldn’t see you anymore. Then I woke up and wrote this.

One sister calls to tell me the doctor told you to your face that you are in the advanced staged of Alzheimer’s. How you sometimes forget who your wife of 28 years is.

Another sister calls and tells me that you took her into the hallway to question her about photographs that have been hanging on your walls for years and that you are upset that they keep telling you can’t drive anymore, even though you probably haven’t driven in a few years.

The last time I came to visit at Thanksgiving, the man who never had a hair out of place, had on a slightly wrinkled shirt and some hair sticking up in the back. You kept asking me the same questions over and over again.

I finally am starting to accept it. You are fading away.

My mind is racing with moments from my childhood with you.

I don’t remember much, since you moved out when I was 5, but the moments from our “every other weekend visits” are branded on to my memory and can never be removed.

Sleeping in your soft white undershirts because they always smelled like you.

Your hand pretending to be a tiny monster reaching around to the back seat as you drove trying to grab my feet and making me giggle so hard.

Letting me comb and style your thick grey hair when I was a little girl while you sat on the couch and watched t.v.

Dancing little jigs in the kitchen and saying silly things to make me laugh.

Seeing the looked of embarrassment on your face when I yelled out, “My dad is old! He’s 43!” at your apartment pool.

Hearing you laugh when you tell the story about how during a party you had in your “single” days, when I was SUPPOSED to be asleep up in the loft, I dropped a message down saying, “Help, I’m being held prisoner.”

Hating you when you refused to let me stay with you when Mom remarried and moved to South Carolina.

Feeling bad for hating you when I grew up and realized it was the best thing for me.

Hearing in your voice how proud you were when I told you I was going to be a pharmacist.

Seeing the look in your eyes when you saw L for the first time after we got home from China and visited.

Remembering when you almost died after surgery two years ago that I went to the waiting room to write you a letter explaining what you meant to me. Someone interrupted me to tell me you had woken up and I tore it up and threw it away.

I try to act like I don’t care about what’s happening, because I’ve always been hurt that you seemed closer to my sisters than me. I’m sure they sense it on the phone when they talk about you, and probably think I’m cruel.

But I cried last night, because I’m scared of losing you without you knowing how I feel.

I’m mostly scared that you may be scared.

I’m worried every time I call you that this will be the time you won’t remember who I am. I won’t hear the familiar “Amy Louise!” that makes my eyes roll and my heart smile.

But there are a few things I want you to know, before you fade away from me, Dad.

Some of my favorite things about myself came from you.

My daughter likes to sleep in my old soft t-shirts because she says they smell like me.

She giggles when I’m driving and reach my hand around like a tiny monster to grab her feet.

We like to sing silly made up songs together.

We dance little jigs together in the kitchen and crack each other up.

She may not be blood related to you, but I see your expressions and actions come through her.

I’ll be driving down with L to see you this weekend. You sound excited and that makes me happy. I plan to tell you a lot of things that I never have, I just hope you truly understand.

Don’t fade yet.