I spent the weekend with my dad. I do respite care for my mom so she can have a break. I’ve not spent the night here in a while so when I visit I don’t see how far the dementia has gotten. I’m not sure it’s something you get used to. I have a hard time with who my dad was to what dementia is doing to him now. He worked on the BC ferries and he did all the food in the ferries. He made all the decisions and he had a huge team of people he was in charge of. When he retired his job was split into 3 jobs. He’s used to organizing lots of people.
Recently where he lives they have built a new condo complex next door to them and part of the complex is replacing the fence between their property and the townhouses where my parents live. They had to take down the fence behind where they live so you can see through to the next road and into the site. My dad is really thrown him a lot and the stress has caused him to obsesse about what is happening on the other side. He believes that this is his project that he needs to fix. His problem though is the people are incompetent. Saturday morning he was worried about his pants getting dirty because he was off to work to fix the problem on the side of the fence. I told him I would come with him and he said well you can’t there is full of guys and I needed gloves. I was able to distract him and we went for a walk. We saw all the old cars that were in town for the Duce days. They drove down Cordova Bay road. My dad loved that. He talked about it a lot yesterday. It’s funny how the brain remembers some things and not other things. As soon as we would get home he’d be back out inspecting the job site. My poor mom she has to do this day in and day out. It’s so tough.
We went out for coffee to Matticks twice he loved that and I took him out for a drive and he’s super observant and notices things that I never really saw. He sees things that I may have passed 100 times straight away. We spent time down at the beach. He loves people watching. I love his sense of humor and we laugh lots. Saturday night we watched a really good movie and this morning I was reminded that my parents have done so much for me in the past and even though this hard for us all he’s the best father figure I’ve ever had in my life. I love him with all my heart and yes dementia is taking him away slowly but everytime I’m with him I make it the best time we can have. Through thick and thin we are in this journey.
Beauty from Ashes. 