I forget

I don’t know if I regret my life in these last days. I know it’s the end because I’m forgetting the beginning.

I forget where the bathroom is when I need to urinate at night.

I forget my grandchildren, whom I had long considered the equivalent of my life's work.

Yesterday, I forgot my eldest son. For a long while I thought he was a stranger sitting in my house in my son’s clothes. I had been waiting for him to arrive, to relieve me of some of my worries. I had been telling everyone around me that my son was coming! I was very excited. I know my son can do it all much better than I can now. He can calculate the numbers and keep the house in order. He can sort through my things and do the work that I cannot do anymore. He can look after his mother much better than I can now.

He can remember.

He can remember much better than I can now.

But I worry. If I forget my first child what else have I forgotten?

I don’t want to forget my life before it’s taken from me.

I’ve always loved to learn. I’ve collected knowledge my entire life; poems and stories, history and mathematics, English and French. A lifetime later, my mind is not mine anymore. It's all going.

I sometimes drag my wife into a chair and read her poetry. I need to feel like I can still control some of me. I’d like to hold onto some of me. I can see that she doesn’t really care about the poems. She worries about me. She can barely stand on her own for more than a few moments let alone take care of a me when I am no longer myself.

I’m forgetting the life that I lead.

I’m forgetting the people that I fed.

I forget…and I regret that I forget.

But I don’t know if I regret the life that I had. I hope it was a good life.

I don’t know if I know anything anymore.

NB: A short piece I wrote to come to terms with being told that someone very close to me had been diagnosed with Alzheimers. I explored the perspective from what I'd been told, to make peace with it.

-evieroo