At Barnes & Noble this afternoon, Kate looked across the table and asked, “Are we in Fort Worth?” I said, “No, we’re in Knoxville, but we will be in Lubbock on Saturday.” She said, “Who lives there?” I told her our son. She said, “And what’s his name.” I said, “Kevin. He is married to Rachel and they have three children.” She said, “And they are?” I gave her their names. I joked with her and said, “Was I right?” With a very slight chuckle, she said, “I just hope I can remember them.” This recognition of her memory problems is very different from the early years. For a long time, she was really bothered by not remembering things. Not now. That is why I think she no longer connects her problems with her Alzheimer’s.
We left there for our Monday night Mexican meal at Chalupas. As we drove away from Barnes & Noble, Kate said, “ “I’ll stay anyplace as long as I can just relax.” I guessed that she must be thinking that we were out of town. I said, “You like to relax in the evening, don’t you.” A few minutes later, she said, “So, are we really in Fort Worth?” Once again, I told her Knoxville. About midway through our meal, she asked, “Exactly, where are we right now? I told her again. Within moments, she asked again. She doesn’t act disturbed, but it seems clear that she wants to remember and does the only thing she knows how. She keeps asking.
When we got home, we settled in the family room where she looked through the photo album her brother, Ken, had made for her. She spent about 20 minutes leafing through the pages and commenting about the photos and the people in them. Not long after that, I took a phone call from Dorothy Hinely, a longtime friend who now lives in Virginia. She and her husband, Mike, are in town and wanted to have lunch tomorrow. We made arrangements to meet at Casa Bella at noon.
When I came back to the family room, I told Kate about our lunch plans for tomorrow. She couldn’t place the Hinelys and asked me to tell her the names again two or three times. Then she looked at me and said, “You might have to help me with them in the morning.” I told her I would be happy to. I may be wrong, but the look on her face seemed to express the first sign of discouragement over her memory issue in a long time. She said, “Thank you. I really couldn’t live without you. I mean that.”
