My dad is 92 and has Alzheimer’s. He’s had it for 14 years.

Some people call Alzheimer’s “The Long Goodbye” because its grasp is strong, but slow to close. Every day, my dad loses a tiny, tiny piece of whatever it is that keeps us functioning, healthy, and alive. Because it’s so gradual, one day can look a lot like the one before it.

Until it doesn’t.

Until for no discernable reason, the person with dementia can’t recognize something he or she knew well yesterday. But tomorrow, for no discernable reason, it’s all back. Until it’s gone again. And then back but something else is gone. You get the idea.

I used to try to figure out what was happening for my dad when he had a sudden moment of clarity. Was the sun out? Were we playing music? Did he get a lot of sleep? But I could never find a pattern. Clarity came and went like random shifts of a kaleidoscope in the hands of a monkey. What I wanted was a key–a way to unlock whatever was blocking him so he could hang on to clarity just a little longer.

But there is no key. At least, none that I could find. Maybe it’s different for the person with dementia in your life.

I think what I really wanted was a way to suspend his decline.

A Child’s Fear

When my dad was a kid, he was terrified of getting lockjaw. He was so terrified, in fact, that he made an emergency plan. His plan was this: at the moment he felt his jaw seizing up, he was going to place a small wooden block in his mouth so that he’d still be able to eat. He was pretty serious about this: he kept the wooden block in his pocket.

I’ve always found that story poignant. Oh, the things that terrified us as kids. And then one day I realized that I was doing something similar as an adult. I thought that if I studied my dad like a science project, I could figure out what kept him clear headed. I thought I could lodge a block of wood between his clear mind and his failing mind.

At some point, my dad figured out that he was not in immanent danger of getting lockjaw and he stopped carrying the block. Knowing him, he probably chucked it clear across the street. And the space in his mind where worry lived was quickly filled by more boy thoughts and dreams and desires.

Maybe There Is No Why

The day I realized that I wasn’t going to find the key–and that I was okay with not finding it–was the day I let all the beauty and the wonder and the mystery of my dad’s current life into my heart. That was a day of awakening for me: dementia is horrible, difficult, and terrifying–but my dad was also living a full life, a whole life, a beautiful, meaningful life. If I continued to use my energies trying to figure out the whys of his life, I was going to miss his life by not being fully present to him in his now.

And now is all any of us really have. Don’t block it.