By Katharine Malaga
My husband, Ross, sits straight up in his easy chair, iPad on, ready for the search. I lean in from the edge of our sofa, ready for the rescue. Steaming cups of Guatemalan dark roast perfume the space between us.
“What is it I have?” he asks.
His engineer’s mind seeks hard data and provable facts.
My nursing mind seeks a way to explain.
“Dementia,” I say.
“What are the letters?”
“D,” I say. He circles his “good” hand around the keyboard. I stand up, hover over his shoulders, and guide his fingers through the maze. He presses each key with a heavy touch.
“Dementia,” I exclaim when the letters flash on the search bar.
I am thrilled when a fleeting fragment of his former memory pushes his hand to Return. With a single click, hundreds of arcane definitions burst forth and scroll down the screen without stopping.
He looks at me, his bewildered gaze begging for help.
“Start here,” I say after I find the shortest entry from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I read out loud with slow and clear pronunciation:
“Dementia,a usually progressive condition such as Alzheimer’s disease marked by the development of multiple cognitive deficits, such as memory impairment, aphasia, and the inability to plan and initiate complex behavior…”
He snaps his iPad shut. I pause in silence.
“I’ll have to read it over and over,” he says. He slumps deep into his chair and runs his hand over his silver hair. His rare gesture for “I give up.”
I squeeze his hand.
We sit in silence.
I return to the edge of the sofa and sip my coffee, now stale and cold.
“What is it I have?” he asks.
His scientist’s mind seeks cool reason and irrefutable logic.
My teaching mind seeks a way to clarify.
“Dementia,” I say.
I print D-E-M-E-N-T-I-A in large block letters on the back of an envelope.
“D…,” he says, drawing the shaky letter in the air, followed by a halting e.He curls his fingers, trying to capture a fleeting m, another vanished e, an effervescent n.
His hand falls like a heavy stone in his lap. The t-i-a has evaporated.
He closes his eyes. I sense his inner mind signaling, synching, synapsing. His intuitive mind searching, searching for insight beyond letters; his contemplative mind seeking, seeking wisdom beyond words.
My caregiving mind vows to walk with him on the uncharted journey.
He opens his eyes and takes my hand.
“You must remember that I forget,” he says.