Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Still Dad?

When dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's me and my siblings started doing our research on the disease. We read books, articles and watched TV programs to educate ourselves on the disease...

One book that has stayed with me is "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova. It is a fictional book, but has some great insight on this disease. I remember in the book, the character Alice was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but she still was a person under her inabilities to function in society, normally...

My siblings and I are around my parents house A LOT. We hang out there every Tuesday night as well as on Sundays. My dad will come down, sit next to his space heater, talk to us about anything in Hindi and then go back upstairs. He does this enough times in a day where we have started to realize he has a pattern.

The other day my husband, Sriram was at the house with us and he was sitting on the couch alone, while my Dad was sitting in his normal spot in front of the space heater.. What was amazing to me was when my dad turned to Sriram to talk to him, he realized he was not one of his kids, so instead of speaking to him in Hindi, he started to speak to Sriram in English...

I was in the kitchen listening to them.. That moment reminded me that Dad was Still Dad, inside...

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