On the tip of my tongue........

The other day on the elevator, I was telling my sister a story and I could NOT remember the name of a person I was talking about. It was elusive— just right there, but I couldn’t get to that name.
Stuff like that scares the bejesus out of me.

Mom and dad had kids young. When dad was diagnosed, I was in my mid thirties. If I were to end up in the same boat, Zak and Drew would be in their young twenties. That’s just too young to have to deal with an ailing parent. Too, too young.

Shortly after Dad was diagnosed, he told my mother that she’d be relieved to know he had decided against suicide. I don’t know how serious he was, but I do know he wouldn’t have mentioned it unless he had — however briefly — considered it. It made me really, really angry. How dare he even think of making a decision like that? But every time I forget to do something or space out on a name, I think about that conversation, and I understand just a little. I am established in my life, and this sucks. I cannot imagine if the boys were in college and they got that news about me.

There are some types of early onset Alzheimers that are genetically influenced in a way that you can get tested to see if you can get it. They have not said that Dad has that kind, and given that no one in his family before him had AD, I doubt it is. But I do wonder what I would do if it was. Would I want to know? Probably not really. Would I find out? Yeah, I think I would. Not so much for myself, but so that I could be sure to wring every single bit of pleasure out of my boys now, so that I could set things up for them so they didn’t have to worry about the mundane details of taking care of me.

Even now, I sometimes hug Drew or kiss Zachary, overcome by the desire to hug him just a little harder or kiss just one more time, and think “I want to REMEMBER this.” I want to remember it always. Forever. The smell of their hair, their sturdy arms snuggling me. It reminds me that this damn disease doesn’t only steal loved ones away from us, but we leave them as well. One day my dad might not know who I am. I think about how painful that will be. For both of us.