Recently I found a never-used agenda for the year that is now almost over. Purchased for my wife when we were still optimistic enough to assume she could benefit from it. So nothing. A request was also received from the Museum Card Foundation to extend its card for 2025. I then realized that she had not used her 2024 card once.
We used to go to the movies often. Sometimes I consider taking her with me again, but I don’t dare for fear that the film will contain too much gloom and violence. It should be a somewhat cheerful film, a children’s film perhaps? She still likes to laugh, it is as if her sense of humor is undamaged, she responds alertly to comic inflections and grimaces. I remember how she laughed exuberantly at Hans Teeuwen on TV, a few years ago when the diagnosis of dementia had already been made.
But having a normal conversation is no longer possible. The statement you make initially seems to get through to her, but then she picks out one word that she elaborates on, even though it has nothing to do with the core of your message. For example, if you say that the minister stumbled over his words, there is a chance that she will start talking at length about the untidy bushes on the other side of the road.
Talking becomes an exchange of incomprehensibility. Still, you should continue because any form of contact will prevent her from sinking too much into lethargy. But you shouldn’t talk for too long, because then she will become impatient and ask: “What are we doing? Are we still going for a walk?”
The staff in most nursing homes, including hers, are too busy to participate in such activities, so any help from family and friends is welcome. Fortunately, my wife still walks like a lapwing – an older lapwing, that is – and finds hour-long walks no problem.
However, these walks are regularly interrupted for short encounters with leashed dogs – especially small dogs. The fascination she always had for cats has completely transferred to dogs. Every dog needs to be spoken to and preferably petted, even if the owner has little time for that. It happens that I hastily direct us into a side street when I see yet another dog approaching.
And to think that in the past we never even considered getting a dog instead of a cat. Animals are not allowed in the nursing home, but my wife has found an ideal replacement in a large, white porcelain dog that she carries with her everywhere, motherly. Unfortunately, the latest news is that the dog is missing, because this also persists in the nursing home: items that grow legs and run off.
If I am ever ready for a transformation, I can please my wife by opting for the classic Keeshond, famous for its “fluffy coat, foxy appearance and enthusiastic smile,” according to the descriptions.
I myself stayed behind at home with the cat we bought five years ago. My wife, surprisingly enough, never asks about her. She has completely forgotten her. A bitter fate from which I will not escape in the long run.