My Turn: Coming Out to My Dad, Twice | Newsweek My Turn | Newsweek.com
“Hey there. Are you a man or a woman?” my father asked the stocky girl in navy-blue coveralls as we rode the elevator down to the hospital lobby. Eighty years old and wandering in the abyss of midstage Alzheimer’s, Dad used to pride himself on what he didn’t say. I, at 42, unmarried and the youngest of three brothers, was now his partial caretaker, making frequent trips across the Hudson to the hospital near my childhood home in New Jersey.
Until recently, Dad’s illness was all about frustration: he drove his mouse-gray Buick Century into cars that had stopped short, he got lost on trips to the store, he forgot his grandkids’ names. But this new phase of filter-free wonderment was relatively refreshing, if only for its lack of guile. That is, until he aimed it at me as I drove him home.
via My Turn: Coming Out to My Dad, Twice | Newsweek My Turn | Newsweek.com.
Posted on May 3, 2009 | No Comments | Category: Alzheimer's, Caregiving |
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