A couple of days ago my sister and I drove up to Idaho to see my parents for a quick visit. I was actually dropping her off there to stay with them before she heads off on the next leg of her trip. Nowadays, every visit with my dad is fraught with anxiety, worry, and potential spectacle. Mostly because he has dementia. Some of it just because family can be a little tricky. But he has always been blunt, and now has ZERO filters. Also, very little situational awareness. He just says and does whatever, except at sloth speed, so we can kind of minimize the damage. Two highlights from this little trip.

” I NEED YOU TO CLEAN MY COMPUTER”

He said this to my sister in between very deliberate bites of pie. The rest of us had drifted off to the family room, so she took the full brunt of the rest of the sentence. “There’s all this sex stuff on it. I can’t figure out how to make it go away.” T came across the room looking she’d been hit by a flash bang. There are so many things that happened next that vie for most ridiculous- the fact that my sister could not believe that my dad had said the word S-E-X to her, that my mother said that she remembered walking into his office and seeing a naked lady on the screen and saying, “What’s that?!” (those are boobs, mom.), and then when he said he couldn’t figure out how to clear the pesky porn pop-ups, she WALKED OUT AND LEFT HIM THERE TO DEAL WITH IT! Even, though he moves a mouse at 1/100th the speed of a two-year old, or could it be that even a month after the incident the computer is sitting in his office, monitor turned off, CPU unplugged, like it’s in time out. Because that’s how you fix it. Yikes. We were able to clear the history, and I’d still like to know the digital path from FamilySearch to boobsrus, or whatever it was, but there was CLEARLY a drift off the main path there. 🤦🏻‍♀️. And install a filter. Also, I want to burn my eyes. And how on earth did my sister make it this far without hearing my dad say the word “sex”? Seriously, he was my high school biology teacher. Also, one of his more memorable lectures on morality went like this : “Every man thinks about sex 95% of the time. Even the prophet!” I was 17. Spencer W. Kimball was the President of our church. I was horrified. At least it wasn’t the inelegant but very practical advice he gave one of my brothers: “Don’t ever pay for sex!” Let’s just say he was not an EFY speaker.

AND THEN THERE WAS THIS MOMENT

I figured that was approaching the excitement quota for the 15 hours I was in town. After the great COMPUTERCLEANUP OF 2019 was finished we tried to take some quick pictures. Let’s be real, I hate getting my picture taken, and my dad is even less of a fan. But every time I see him, the deterioration is more obvious, and he is literally dying in front of me, disappearing physically and mentally. I always think this might be the last picture, now. So, my sister said, “Squeeze in there close like you love her, Dad”. And he said, around a mouthful of M&Ms that he was eating as fast as my granddaughter, “I do love her.” I wiped the chocolate off his cheek, took the kimchee my mom packed up (and which I just now realized I forgot to tell my husband is in the outside fridge! Sorry, honey!) and hit the road. I was a mile down the freeway when I realized, that is the first time my dad ALMOST said he loved me. I know he DOES. I thought I was totally fine not hearing the words, because he didn’t grow up in a super affectionate, expressive family, and neither did I. I always say, “I love you” on the phone and he always says “Thanks” or “Here’s your mother” or something equally awkward. Maybe now he realizes every goodbye just might be our last goodbye, too. I hate dementia and the way it is killing him in slow motion. But it is giving me a chance to say goodbye slowly, too. To listen to the things that have been hard to say. To try and show love in a way that can be felt when a lot of the memories are going.

Take a minute and tell someone you love them. Even when it’s awkward or uncomfortable. I was ok not hearing the words and still knowing I was loved. But hearing them was like being given an unexpected gift in the middle of this roller coaster of grief and worry. And we all need those tender mercies to get through.