February is a melancholy month. Thinking back to childhood, it is the coldest month. In four weeks it will be March. March is the first happy month. The world is waking from winter.

February is like the early morning. The care partner gets up quietly so as to not disturb the early morning peace. He stretches and puts on a sweater. He makes coffee. He opens the shades to see the sunrise. (Shifting person lets me step outside of myself.)

Cheryl is sleeping late. Early in the day yesterday she was showing signs of her impostor delusion so I got her out of the condo.

She is upset with the passing of her cousin Gerry. Janet, Gerry’s sister, called yesterday to report the news of his passing. We talked on the phone for a little while. I put the phone on speaker so Cheryl could hear and participate. All of us reminisced for a bit. After Janet hung up, Cheryl got up to get dressed. In that interval she became the person in charge of Gerry’s celebration of life. She decided she needed to pack for the trip. I helped her for a bit.

On the fly I conjured a tour of the countryside. I was not sure of where other than simply out. I sent a big long text to her brothers and sisters so they would be aware of her mental state if she abruptly called them.

We visited her mother’s grave. We had talked of this for a couple weeks. She often loses the fact that her mother has passed away. I struggle with ways to gently help her understand that I cannot take her to see her mother. For a moment yesterday she seemed surprised to read her mother’s name on the stone. It broke my heart to realize that this is the thing she cannot remember, her mother’s death. Cheryl and her Mom were very close. Her dementia was at the very beginning about five years ago when her mother passed away. I suppose I did not realize at the time that she had shoved this knowledge into a place where it was not easily retrieved. Gerry’s stay in Hospice and our visits to see him bought back a flood of childhood memories.

The written world and its words are a jumble to her. She told me that Mom would stay here until she is cremated. I drove her to another part of the cemetery where our niche is located waiting for our cremains. I do not think she understood that she had become her mom in her thoughts.

I let that go. I decided I was trying to fix an impression that did not need correcting. Often in her conversation she is a child, her mother, my wife and mother to our children and occasionally I become Dan, David, Scott or, in the very early morning, Janice all within the same five minutes of conversation. She wondered aloud if the cemetery office would know where Gerry was to be buried. I replied that Gerry was going to be cremated per his request and his remains interred in the parish cemetery in Kentucky. Oh she replied.

I started a conversation about where to go for a walk when we left the graveyard. She said we could go to Mom’s house and then corrected herself to say, “where Mom used to live.” Internally I smiled. It seemed to me there was hope. It is February and we are in Ohio.

I suggested lunch first, so, we discussed various places nearby. We landed at one of Ohio’s claims to fame, Bob Evans’s Farm Restaurant. There are a bunch. One was close by and it was the one she would take her mom to occasionally. While waiting for our food we chatted about various topics. I sent a text to my son David and asked if he would be home in the afternoon. We had forgotten our pie plate and the carrier and I thought to retrieve it. He lives far enough from us that Cheryl would get a sense of “going home” from his house.

When we arrived at David’s house a neighbor’s garage was on fire. It was several yards and a street away but it added a certain amount of urgency to getting in David’s driveway and added a discussion of events totally unrelated to Gerry’s death. Melissa made fajitas for dinner.

It was a good outing. Cheryl was exhausted when we got home. Later this week I may probe her memory of her mother. (or not.) This was a long rambling story about a day that made me anxious about her mental state which seems to be deteriorating quickly some days and some days not.

On this morning, the day afterward, she did not open an eye until I awakened her at ten o’clock. She had not changed position from when I got her into bed at just before ten the previous evening. She did not stir when I came to bed an hour or so later. She did not stir overnight when I made my usual couple trips to the bathroom. It seems as though she sleeps more lately but sometime she is agitated about something in the evening and when I ask she is unable to vocalize her thoughts.

Dementia and Parkinson’s are miserable companion diseases. (And they both suck.)

Carpe Diem.