BabyRalph’s first birthday is coming up at the end of the month. Ralph so enjoyed having the family together at Christmas that the day everyone left he actually agreed to drive with me to New Orleans for the birthday celebration. Of course, I have avoided bringing up the coming trip too often to avoid unnecessary anxiety.
But yesterday I asked Ralph to help me put together one of BabyRalph’s birthday presents, a scooter. (I am not going to bore you with my own grandmother obsessing about finding the perfect present except to send a shout out to GG if you’re reading.) Of course, Ralph resisted at first, but as you can see he didn’t resist long. In fact he got totally into the project, which turned out to be the perfect level of difficulty: just easy enough for Ralph to manage and just challenging enough for him to feel good about managing. In other words, I actually could have put the scooter together myself, but not with Ralph’s innate ability using tools). It took less than an hour to complete the scooter and Ralph was really pleased. We both were.
So this morning, drinking coffee I brought up the scooter again. I told him the scooter would be his special GrandpaRalph present to BabyRalph, an idea he loved.
“So we’ll give it to him at Christmas, right?”
I looked at him and bit my tongue, the urge toward annoyed correction still strong.
“No his birthday,” I said as calmly as I could. “We just had Christmas.”
“Oh.” He looked flustered. “What month is this?”
“January.”
“Remember we had a big Christmas, everyone here.”
“Oh right, I forgot.” He nodded and sipped his coffee thinking. “Who came this year?”
I wonder how all those people who told me Ralph seemed cognitively better this Christmas would react to knowing he’d forgotten about their visit (and in some cases who they were to him) already.
In a nutshell this is Ralph, happy in the moment as long it lasts, his past and future fraying away daily.
Alice in Memoryland 
I know that feeling well. Maureen has no concept of time any longer. She frequently complains that we have no visitors hours after family have called to see us.
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Thanks for writing. Before Ralph’s diagnosis I never realized how a sense of time not only structures our lives but is also essential to the kind of communication necessary in any relationship.
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This is exactly how things are at our house – “Oh, what month is it?” Or season, or year, in this calm, mildly curious tone – and I try to put myself in that place, and wonder how the world looks and feels when you don’t have that orienting info immediately available.
Hope the New Orleans trip goes well, and you have more fun than trouble!
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Love the way you put it, “calm,mildly curious tone.” And it is so hard to put ourselves in their places; even the fact that we are making the effort points up the gulf.
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I am right there with you. So, so sad.
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Karen, thanks for writing. Sad is such a powerful word, isn’t it.
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