Remember Me, Forget My Fate

Dementia

“So you’re telling me I have early onset dementia?” The doctor looked uncomfortable for a few seconds, then suggested I was perhaps a little too old for the ‘early onset’ part to be entirely accurate. I said I didn’t think I was too far gone yet to realise this. He nodded solemnly and wrote something on his notepad. Some people need to learn how to take a joke.

Rose had said she thought I was becoming more forgetful. I said I couldn’t remember doing that. She smiled indulgently, as she often does. It’s one of the things I like most about her. Now and again I say silly things just so I can see this smile, which is not the same as any of her other smiles. Every time it happens, suddenly we’re in our teens again, hardly able to believe that, out of all the billions of people in the world (or, more realistically, the few hundred we might conceivably have met), we somehow found each other. We were very happy then and, although so many things have changed, we still are.

Rose had said she thought I was becoming more forgetful. Wait, I’ve already written that. Hah. I reminded her I’m a very busy man, and can’t be expected to remember everything. “Just go to the doctor and get yourself checked out,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I suppose we know now.