The day after Christmas was my parents’ 47th anniversary. Note that I did not write: The day after Christmas my parents celebrated their 47th anniversary. Mom did not feel like celebrating. The reason she did not feel like celebrating was that Dad didn’t know it was their anniversary.

Dad did not simply forget their anniversary. Dad no longer knows what an anniversary is. He doesn’t know who his wife is. He doesn’t know what a wife is.

But he’s still in there.

For the past three years, up until late last summer, Dad had been in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and well into the denial that goes hand-in-hand with the dread diagnosis. Copping only to a tad of “memory trouble,” he continued to go to work. His law partners didn’t have the heart to let him go; they just scrambled to unscramble the documents that Dad had made mess of.

Dad was prescribed Aricept, a drug that slows the progression of dementia; it staves off the inevitable for a year or so. Dad still enjoyed an active life despite his physical problems; he swam three days a week and cycled on weekends. He and my mother enjoyed restaurants, theater, and travel.

Last August Dad had double bypass surgery and a valve replacement. We found out later that patients may suffer days, sometimes weeks, of agitated confusion after eight hours on a heart-lung machine while under deep anesthesia. Discounting the rare cases of permanent brain damage resulting from cardiac arrest during surgery, patients who emerge from anesthesia with scrambled brains eventually return to their normal state.

Except Alzheimer’s patients.

Their condition deteriorates beyond recovery.

Had they been informed, my parents still may have opted for surgery. Dad would have been miserable had he been forced to curtail his activities; it would have been nerve-racking to live under threat of heart attack regardless.

As it was, Dad fast-forwarded to the middle stage of Alzheimer’s. He is not bed-ridden, unresponsive, and incontinent as are patients in the final stage. Dad remains mobile, reactive, and toilet-savvy; nonetheless, he is utterly demented.

But he’s still in there.

Mom had brought him home a week post-surgery after pushing for early discharge in the hope that familiar surroundings would reorient and calm him. The short-staffed hospital was relieved to have a needy patient off their hands and did not discourage my mother from taking him home prematurely.

After an auspicious hour of tranquility, Dad became increasingly agitated. He kept my mother up all night with trips to the toilet and with continuous pacing. He rummaged through the garbage can, tossing dinner scraps onto the table whence they came. The following morning, spying a wicker basket of seashells, he poured milk atop the pile, by way of enjoying a leaky bowl of Cap’n Crunch.

After a second sleepless night Mom hired an aide to tend Dad at night. Dad persisted to seek her out despite the aide’s efforts to distract him. Mom switched to a daytime aide so that she could escape the house; the aide fell asleep leaving Dad to wander. My sister discovered this on a visit when my father came to the door in answer to her knock.

After a brief stint in a geriatric ward where his condition was deemed hopeless, doctors pressed Mom to seek permanent placement in a nursing home.

There were waiting lists and paperwork. Mom had to guarantee funds for two years; the annual cost was a hundred thousand dollars.

I visited Dad the day after his move to the nursing home. On that day I witnessed glimmers of clarity, even astuteness.

Upon my arrival, Dad was fox-trotting with the social director. Mom considered Dad a mediocre dancer; I was delighted to see him holding his own.

After his turn ended, there was a group trivia game. The first question was: Who wrote the poem “Trees”?

Dad burst out: “Trees” is the worst poem ever written! He often  disparaged that poem; I was gratified to hear that he disliked it as much as ever.

Otherwise, little of what Dad says makes sense. On a good day, he’ll talk at great length, with apparent coherence, of what he did the night before. Though on the face of it, his tale is plausible, it is confabulated.

For instance, he told me that he’d had “a very unpleasant evening on the subway.” He said he couldn’t get his phone to work and nobody would help him. Dad hasn’t been on the subway for months and he doesn’t have a cell phone. He always hated telephones; he was frustrated by any type of mechanical and electronic device. He clearly hasn’t changed in this regard.

Dad mostly speaks real words strung together in nonsensical phrases. Sometimes he’ll babble gibberish.

But he’s still in there.

Dad was always well-liked. And still is. The staff are quite fond of him; the residents adore him, particularly the ladies. Charles has lots of girlfriends, said one of the staff, with a wink. Everybody loves Charles.

He’s still in there.