Fading Memories

This post was written by my wife, T Turk.

My birthday has always been a day of mixed emotions. If you’ve been following Aaron’s blog for some time, you know that I am adopted. Being adopted means that I end up having conflicting feelings about my birthday. It has always been a great day where my loved ones celebrate me and, come on, who doesn’t love that? As a child, I would wake up on my birthday morning to a house filled with balloons and neatly wrapped presents stacked against the fireplace. I would get an early morning birthday phone call from my Papa (my mom’s dad), a fun-filled day packed with activities, a birthday dinner with friends and family and, to top it all off, I would get a giant chocolate cake filled with chocolate pudding, fresh whipped cream and strawberries (and in more recent years a Brooklyn Blackout Cake).

But being adopted brings with it some negative emotions, as well. I’ve written about some of those feelings here but the deeper issues have to do with my family of origin, the people I am genetically related to and the ways those parts of my life have influenced my identity. I don’t have many answers to those questions, which puts a damper on what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my year.

August 18th is my birthday. On August 21st, my parents and I celebrate the day I was brought home from the hospital, completing our perfect family of three. I’ve always looked forward to celebrating on the 18th, but the 21st has always been meaningful, as well.

This year is different, though. Over the past few months, my life has been turned upside down.

My childhood playmate and best friend is slipping away from me. Two months ago, my world changed when Aaron received a phone call from my mom telling us that my dad was missing. You read about it in the news and you see the silver alert signs on the parkways but you never expect it to happen to you. That was the moment for me; I knew then that nothing would ever be the same.

Thankfully we found him. In a million years, I never would have thought we would find him driving over the Williamsburg coming back from Manhattan. My mom thinks he was going “home” and I think she’s right; he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. When Aaron and I drove to pick him up, he was confused. He kept saying, “I was just trying to get across the river.” As I drove, he joked that I was driving fast. I laughed, I said “I’m not speeding. You always said that I can go 5 miles over the speed limit and I won’t get a ticket. Don’t you remember? The one question I got wrong on my driving test was about the speed limit! I told the the woman administering the test that my Dad said it’s fine to go five miles above the speed limit and I won’t get pulled over! (She chuckled, but as you would expect, still marked the answer wrong.) As I continued recalling the story, my dad sat in the passenger seat bewildered. He had no memory of ever teaching me to drive.

Two weeks later, my father was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Everyone who knows me knows how close I am to my mom; we have a bond that most people only dream about having. But many people don’t know that my dad and I have also had a very strong relationship.

My dad was always my buddy, my playmate, my best friend. I’m an only child and never knew what it was like to have a sibling to play with. I never missed out, though, because I had my dad. He endured many hours of Monopoly, dress-up with tutus and Sesame Street masks, hours of playing catch and shooting hoops in front of the house, running through sprinklers, taking me on rides at amusement parks… you name it and my Dad did it with me with no questions asked. When I got older my dad was my confidant when I did something wrong. Of course, I know I may look innocent, but my mom will be the first to tell you there were quite a few incidents when she wanted to kill me. My dad was my go-to; he would come up with a solution, help me execute it and we would cross our fingers and pray that my mom wouldn’t find out (although, of course, she always did).

But now, my best friend and playmate doesn’t remember anything from my childhood. He doesn’t remember that I am adopted. He doesn’t remember that I grew up in the same home that he still lives in. He doesn’t remember teaching me to drive (or letting me drive years before I should have). He doesn’t remember the laps we swam together at the local pool. He doesn’t remember the long car rides we took together where I would rip tissues up and put them on his head while he was driving. He doesn’t remember the countless teeny bopper concerts he accompanied my friends and me to. That’s right, he was that awesome dad who rocked out with his daughter to Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Spice Girls and even Ricky Martin.

E is very aware of what is going on with my father. He stopped me dead in my tracks the other afternoon as we were walking around our neighborhood. He asked me, “Mommy, when is Papa’s brain going to get better and start working the way it’s supposed to?” Then, a few days ago, we were snuggling on the couch watching the news when a commercial came on for a memory drug. He asked again, “Mommy, do you think we can get that medicine for Papa and it will make him better?” It has amazed me how insightful E has become and how mature he is about topics like this. I wish I could keep his innocence and not force him to grow up so fast and face these daunting challenges. The love E and S have for my father is unparalleled. No one else matters to them as much as my dad does. We joke that when he’s around, everyone else is chopped liver.

I was younger when I watched my grandmother’s health decline after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Even though I understood what was happening, I didn’t really understand. Now, though, I’m thirty-four years old and watching my seventy-two year old father slipping away from me. It feels like my whole life is crumbling.

I don’t know how people do it. It’s not always easy to tell from the outside how bad it is but it is awful. I thought watching both of my parents endure rounds of chemotherapy was difficult but gut-wrenching and heartbreaking has taken on a whole new meaning. It’s also that much worse because I am an only child. No one else is there to hold my hand and truly understand what I’m going through. To say that it is isolating is an understatement.

The struggle is real and it’s not going to go away. I worry about my mom and how much more she now has on her plate. I try to put on a brave face for my mom and for my kids, but the reality is that my heart is breaking. I miss my Dad and he’s not even gone yet.

He doesn’t know that my birthday is today. He doesn’t remember the significance of August 21st. He knows that I’m T and that I’m his daughter. He knows our children, E and S and, for now, that is all that matters.

We’ll remind him of the other “stuff” for as long as he needs.