deviousways

My mother cares for my father, who has dementia. She is 70 this year. He turns 83, I think. We're not sure, actually, because my dad has never been forthright about his age. "When we got married, there was 12 years between us. But every year, the gap grows smaller," says my mother of the age gap between them. It doesn't matter anymore really because for my father, age is now a state of mind. Older memories feel real, the present is something he cannot comprehend or deal with. Some evenings at 3.30 pm, he tells my mother that I will come home soon. I think at that time in his head, I am still in college and he expects me to open the gate and get home any minute now. Sometimes, at around 2 or 3 am, he wakes my mother up saying he's going to Calicut. Never mind that they live in Calicut. Inside his brain, something tells him he's not home yet. So while my mother watches, he slowly attempts to get out of bed. After a while, he tells her, he'll leave in a bit...