My Aunt died today. A quick and intense battle with ALS. I guess if I could choose 5-month struggle with ALS or years and years with Alzheimer’s… oh, man. 

So I told my mom first thing in the morning. She is weirdly spared her grieving today as she can’t seem to remember for more than about 5 to 10 minutes. She remembers the hours we spent with my aunt last week. With driving, It was a whole day affair. My aunt was mostly immobile and asleep much of the time we spent together. We spent several sad hours that way and so my mom has a firmer memory of this. As such, mom knows something is up and has asked me about her sister several times today. “How is Weezie? Is she still with us?” Little things are filtering down. It will be interesting to see how the coming days play out.

My folks don’t spend a lot of time together outside of the kitchen and no one spends much time in the kitchen except my dad and this first and only love, the TV. I speak with about 90% certainty when I say that my folks only had brief moments together today and that I was with them for most of that time. My father had nothing to say about his sister in law’s death. He did not ask my mom how she was or what she might need or what she might be feeling. 

Grant it, I did leave them alone after dinner and they are both still down there, but my dad also turned his favorite TV show in at 7pm. So Yeah. Not much conversation is happening. Some might be tempted to suggest this is because he knows her limited memory will make this questions pointless or triggering, but to this, I can only say that he denies her dementia in almost every other way and insists she can retain memory in the most routine fashion (like suggesting she can be left home alone to deal with arriving plumbers and the like. Yes, this really happened.)

So just a tiny peek into my father’s world – too mortified or uncaring to actually ask my mom how she is after her sister has died. It’s sad. Just plain sad.