The longest day

Today is the longest day and also Father's Day - the first one without my beloved stepdad. I can hear his lovely voice. I think of the hours I spent with him showing him pictures of Ilulissat on the iPad. He couldn't grasp how they got there, he thought I had done it, I'd explain, it's the internet and he'd say I didn't know the internet was interested in Greenland.

Since he left, I wear his Harris tweed jacket when I'm cold or missing him, it feels like he's hugging me. Today, I miss him and feel cold, it's freezing, June in Scotland usually is. So the Harris tweed is doubly needed, and I feel like a student in eighties again, when we'd wear  mansized - usually, our boyfriends' - clothes.

An orange poppy bloomed this morning, of course I see it is a sign that he's here.

And below some gorgeous wee pink wildflowers that I rescued before my mother, who was visiting, mowed away.

'While my brain is not shaming me.'

Last week, I took my Danish stepdad to an SNO concert at the UsherHall for his 84th birthday. A hop and a skip from me. He loves classical music, knows much more than me, though has forgotten most of what he knows. It's well-documented that music is beneficial for people with dementia, it seems to unlock memories (I've started visualising dementia as having a huge padlock around your head). Whenever I am with him now I automatically take his hand or link in to his arm. He always tells me that he can't walk fast these days - he has completely forgotten that I can't either, and his pace is perfect for me. 

The conductor was Danish, Thomas Søndergård. My stepdad told me how to pronounce his name and when he came onto the stage he said,  not quietly, There's Klaus.  It’s not Klaus, it's Thomas, I whispered back. I had the programme on my lap and he must have taken it about ten times during the concert and read it and handed it back to me. He also had his walking stick between his legs, propping up his hands periodically. I kept an eye on the stick, afraid it would fall and clatter. I felt like I was doing my own conducting, making sure things would stay calm. I kept looking at his knees, he was wearing his new brown cords, so dapper! 

If I sit for more than twenty minutes I get vicious pins and needles, so I kept moving my feet, subtly (I hate fidgeters myself and want to stab them). I held my stepdad’s hand off and on and kept looking at his face to see his responses to the orchestra. At times, he seemed transported by the music, at times, he was not focused at all, looking around the hall. He kissed the side of my head a couple of times.  During the Mendelssohn, he turned to me and said, not quietly, Good pianist. I gently said Ssh, and he said, twice, They can’t hear us. I suppose he had a point. And the pianist was wonderful. I was fascinated by the whole orchestra, their arms, all those arms,  violins and cellos, all that lactic acid. I can’t see this kind of thing without marvelling at the ability to sustain movement without utter exhaustion. 

At the interval I’d pre-ordered a wee Glenmorangie for my stepdad, and the bar, standing only, had kindly put two seats aside for us. My stepdad was happy, but asked if he could have ice in his whisky. He has never in his life taken ice. On the way home, I asked him if he had enjoyed himself and he said, Up to a point. He enjoyed the Mendelssohn but found the Brahms finale 'a bit too fierce'. We both loved the second movement. Later, he said to me, While my brain is not shaming me, can I thank you for the lovely time you gave me? He is still aware that he has memory problems and will sometimes knock his head with his fist in frustration. He had already thanked me several times and will do so again the next time I see him.  I loved my evening out with him, I had a gorgeous time.

Poetry of dementia (2)

Last weekend, I was googling Greenland just to see if I could find anything of interest for my stepdad (he grew up there in 1930s and '40s), and we came across this article from the Independent on how they can now grow vegetables in Southern Greenland because of warmer temperatures. I printed the article and he read it a couple of times. Where did you get this? he asked, fascinated. The internet, I replied, everything is on the internet now. That's great, he said, I didn't know the internet was interested in Greenland.

The poetry of dementia (1)

My Danish stepdad is (gently) forgetting his English as his dementia progresses and  last night he, quite fabulously, referred to fish fingers as 'fish pins'.  Lamp posts are now 'light poles' and lifeguards are 'sea rangers'. My mum has been ill and  as we waited for her having out-patient tests yesterday, he said: 'She is no ordinary, everyday human being of any kind, she is my wife.' Tautological, but wonderful (and heartbreaking). Later, my mum and I were chatting about how she is never  ill - the only times she recalls are malaria when she took us to Pakistan in seventies; having to have a salmon bone removed by general anaesthetic during a trip to Finland in nineties, and, more recently, a slipped disc. My stepdad turned to us and said: What's that about Ed Miliband? 

'Salmon bone in Finland' heard as Ed Miliband: the poetry of dementia.

Dorothy

I was having coffee with my lovely stepdad  - who is in his third year of vascular dementia - and he told me he had an appointment with Dorothy Perkins. There was a Dorothy Perkins store opposite us, so it was easy to see what had triggered his thought. I hope you have a lovely time, I replied. I told him about the upcoming Alba programme, there are still some doctors who don't believe we are really ill, I said. Bastards, he replied, in his inimitable - emphatic but polite - Scandinavian way. And then he looked lost, totally lost, I could have cried.