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Dad, Dementia, and Me

How an impaired mind helped me through a scary incident

Emmi S. Herman
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

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A vanishing pink-purple sunset over choppy bay water
Photo by author

His skinny hand in mine, Dad and I walked slowly down the front steps of the memory care residence where he lived in Oyster Bay. “Where should we go today?” I asked, knowing that it didn’t matter to him if we drove to the park or the Emergency Room.

“Wherever you want,” he singsonged, displaying a vitality he once had. I chuckled at his liveliness, something missing since my mother died.

I helped my father into the car and secured the safety belt over his chest just as I do for my grandchildren. I gave Dad’s knuckles a spontaneous kiss. Now clumsy from atrophy, his hands had built Bailey Bridges during World War II, designed a towering dollhouse for me when I was a young girl and saved my mother’s life with the Heimlich maneuver.

In the driver’s seat, I inhaled deeply the unseasonably warm October air, an odd mixture of Allspice and Bain de Soleil. It smelled like the boring summers of my youth.

“Let’s drive to the bay,” I suggested. We both enjoyed the water and the beach. My happy companion nodded. I drove a few miles to the familiar marina parking lot and parked right at the boat launch ramp. There were no boats on the water. The ones not dry-docked were in slips, already covered for winter. I turned off the…

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