not-so-sticky

For many years, I mocked my father for the trail of enigmatic notes that littered our home. They never made much sense to me so it was easy for me to poke fun at them. But the older I become, the more I appreciate how genius this truly was. His notes were obviously a part of his master plan to overcome his memory loss. Written in his own hand, he was not required to rely on his degrading memory. He would remember anything - and everything - by writing a note about it which he could simply refer to later. Who needs a memory with a trail of documentation? I think this one may be my favorite - a typical Bob Brown grocery list. Guinness Stout and Scotch tape. He wrote this one shortly after he moved in with us - hence, our address on it as well. Dad used to walk up to Rite Aide in Cambridge every day, when he was still able, and alternately purchase rubber bands, paper clips, and scotch tape. A cashier told me this one day when I was with him, and Barbara confirmed he had an ever-growing c...

My father had systems that baffled me for years. I didn't understand them, and often what we don't understand, we tend to mock. It was much easier to poke fun of his enigmatic reminders and notes scattered over every inch of our home than it was for me to try and understand why there were notes.  Sometimes, I feel angry that he never discussed his memory problems with me until we could no longer have a dialogue about them. Feeling somewhat frustrated, I asked him the other day, fruitlessly, "Why didn't you ever talk to me about your memory problems?"  And he looked at me with this pleading look of confusion,  I never knew that I had a memory problem!   Whose fault is it that we never had a discussion about this? Is it his, or is it really mine?  When I was younger, it was easy to make jokes about it. One Christmas, when I was in my early 20's, I bought him a book on how to improve his memory as a joke. I thought it was funny. I don't think it is so funny...

"Daddy! Look! Someone took the ice cube!" Lil stared despondently into her purple cup as Seth began to snigger. "Ha! No, Lily, it melted..." "It melted ?"

"What I would like is a piece of ice, something that would make me hungry right now for at least two hours...oh well..." Bob sighed . "Such is life." Dad and I are sitting on the sofa, enjoying a surprisingly sedate moment. Any moment in my house that is sedate is a surprise. I can hear Lil and Liam pestering Dana in the kitchen. He's breaking open pistachios for them - a tedious chore. Seth is upstairs, being his reclusive teen-aged self. I'm poking around online while Dad is chattering. He's peering over my shoulder at the screen of my laptop, resting in my lap on the couch. We already ate dinner, and are lazying about in our pajamas. "Why is it that when you are hungry, you are really hungry? but that when you're not so hungry, you're not. It just seems so strange that it is this way. I mean, I was just wondering what I was going to be eating tonight. not that I'm going to be eating tonight... because it's just too cold to go out...

i feel this way myself sometimes, liam.