Dad’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s stayed
hidden from everyone until I took over the medical administration of my parents
in 2015. Once I found out, there was a deafening silence from most of the
people I know even though virtually all of them would add, “My _____ had
Alzheimer’s…” But there was little help, little beyond people sadly shaking
heads. Or horror stories. Lots of those. Even the ones who knew about the
disease seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Alzheimer’s
Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut
up for any known reason, I started this part of my blog…
I’m a STAR TREK
nerd and I have been since my dad introduced me to the TV series in 1968 or
1969. I was pre-adolescent, and desperate to have something in common with his.
I’d failed miserably in “sports” and long ceded that domain to my brothers and
sister. I’d pretty much given up ever having any connection with Dad. Until
Gene Roddenberry and Lucille Ball conspired to bring my dad and me together. The
fact is that for me, STAR TREK is inextricably linked to my relationship with
my father, and I am a writer today because of that connection.
STAR TREK has also
dealt with time travel since what is called The Original Series, beginning with “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”
in 1967 and a time travel incident that was used to reboot the entire franchise
in 2009, creating a skew from the timeline of all of the TV series as well as
the first ten movies…as well as a temporal incident in this real world. During
the premier of that movie, my father, myself, and my own son went to the movie
along with an old, old friend of mine…
Anyways, in all,
STAR TREK has dealt with time travel issues in 50 of the 741 television
episodes and thirteen movies.
When I talk to dad
these days, I’m dealing with time travel issues all the time.
I’m pretty sure Alzheimer’s
messing with Dad’s memories would have been stranger for me if I hadn’t
actually messed around with time travel and alternate futures in my own head.
Most of the people
who’ve heard me deal with Dad’s wanderings through the past and present are
amazed at how calm and soft-spoken I am. Truthfully, the leaps and bounds he
makes don’t bother me. I just go with the flow of the conversation – oh, I
forgot to mention that Dad ALSO deals with alternate timelines as well. Like
the one where Mom is still alive and is divorcing him…
Alzheimer’s has
given me a new appreciation for the philosophical concept of “being in the now”.
Jesus said it, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry
about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34, NIV)
Buddha said it, ““The
secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry
about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment
wisely and earnestly.” (Motivating
Thoughts of Gautama Buddha, Mahesh Dut Sharma)
Ekhart Tolle said
it, “All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and
denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of
fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret,
resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness
are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.” (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
Must be right, eh?
(I’d put a smiley emoticon here if I could…)
For Dad, “now” is
a fluid concept. Lately he’s been vividly dreaming, calling me to whisper that
because I won’t believe him, I HAVE to come to his apartment, because Mom’s
there and they’re talking; or insisting that he has an entire wardrobe at “that
place I was before” he has to get to; or declaring that “the guys I bum around
with” had just dropped him off and he was wondering when he would get paid for
doing the job they did. But when I press for details (no, I don’t grill him!),
the illusion begins to fall apart and he’ll say, “I don’t know where I am or
what I’m going to do next…”
That’s the default
mode. Something in him senses that the timelines aren’t lining up. He called
last night to ask if I had Mom’s phone number, followed saying in the next
breath, “Oh, Mom’s dead.” He’ll breathe one more time, then ask, “But does she
have a phone where she’s at?”
When I’m feeling
strong and in a good mood, I can joke about it, “Dad, you know where Mom is,
right?”
“Oh, that’s right,
she’s dead.”
“And you know how
creepy that would be for you to try and talk to her in her coffin, right?”
He laughs, and
then we move on to whatever the next point of conversation is, sometimes in the
past, sometimes “I’m just bored here…”
I’ll talk about
boredom some other time. For now, these are all my thoughts on time traveling
with Dad. If you’re interested in my previous ruminations where I’ve done
research into the medical “why” this is happening, you can go here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2017/09/guys-gotta-talk-aboutalzheimers-10-time.html
For now, that’s
it.
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