Why Can't He Remember?

 “Why?” Ashley looked into her Mom’s eyes from the passenger seat of the blue car. They are pulled over on the side of the road, after driving for hours the tension that seemed to echo throughout the whole car, suffocating them to the point of pulling over. 

Her Mom glances up from the steering wheel that she has been staring at for ten minutes in silence. She turns to the side slightly in her seat and looks at her young teenage daughter next to her. “Why what?” 

“Why are you so for sending Gramps away from us?” Ashley's lower lips tremble slightly, as her eyes go wide. 

“We are not sending him away, we are putting him in a place that will help and take care of him.” 

“We can take care of him. There is nothing wrong with him!” 

There can’t be.

Since the day she was born to now, sixteen years later, she has spent every second she could with her Gramps. They played school on rainy days and storytelling on cold ones. They played tag and ran in many 'Marathons' in their backyard together.  

And when the doctor told her Gramps that running around was harming his health, he nodded in response. Then went home and the second his little granddaughter walked into the room and asked to play outside, he touched her shoulder, and yelled, “You’re it!” And he never stopped running with her because she thought he was unbreakable and he never wanted her to see the truth. He was always there for her day and night, but now he might not even know her name. 

“Ash, we can’t help him, half of the time he doesn’t even know who we are.”

“Yes he does, he remembers, he remembers me!” She sounds desperate she knows, the tears streaming down her face as she brushes them away with her hand rapidly, is even more proof. But she can’t help it, he can’t forget about her. He can’t leave her behind for the wind to knock her down like everyone else has done in her life. He can’t leave her behind. 

“Baby, we have been driving for hours looking for him. Your Aunt Betty found him two hours out of our state. Listen, I know this is devastating and terrifying but honey he needs to be somewhere where they can help him in ways we just can’t.”

“He remembers me, he has too.” 

She can’t admit to herself the truth, how his eyes have been developing a lost glaze to them. If she admits it to herself then she would have to accept the truth about what the future has in store for them. 

She can’t imagine her life without him. Without him and her to smile and laugh at everyone and everything around them. To take on the world together. 

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She walked into his room. The white walls and floor tiles make her stomach twist and turn at the hospital look. It is not a hospital, she knows that but when she took her first steps into the Advanced Dementia Care Center she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between them. She clutches the flowers as her hands shake rapidly. 

Why am I so scared to see him?

She spots him in his chair, a big brown recliner, he loves that chair. Looking around the room she notices the chair is the only piece of furniture from his old home. 

“What are you doing in my room?!” He growled at her like he had to protect himself from the intruder invading in his space.

“I came by to see you,” Ashley said after pausing for a minute.

He looked at her. 

Their eyes make contact. 

Then he uttered the one line she never thought could be real.

“Who are you?”

Flowers slam against the floor beneath them, as her body goes numb. 

Her heart skipped a beat and she turned around instantly and ran.

She ran down the hallway, never looking back as left the building. 

Her back hits the back of the brick building the second she is outside. 

She waits for her mom to pick her up with her head down in silence, at the realization that overwhelmed her body, he really doesn’t remember her. He doesn’t remember reading the newspaper jokes together. He doesn’t remember laughing over the squirrels running on top of the fence. He doesn’t remember when she cried on his shoulder on the bad days and cheered on the great ones. 

He doesn’t remember her. 

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She stayed away from him for a while; she couldn’t handle the thought of him not knowing her again. Her mom tries to convince her but she just can’t. She wanted to remember him when he knew who she was. Eventually, she realized that not going to see him would leave her with regrets later down the road. So here she is. 

Standing in front of his room again with the daily newspaper in her hand. 

The second she put her foot in the room, his eyes snapped to hers. He is sitting in his brown chair and looks a lot more paler than the last time she saw him. His eyes still hold that lost look in them like before but she thinks they are more gone this time around. More of his life has vanished from his mind. He looks more relaxed though, his shoulders not as tight, his hands not as stiff and the corner of his mouth is slightly turned up. 

“Hey Gramp, I brought you something.” 

She walks over to him and takes the funny jokes out of the newspaper and hands it to him. 

He looks at her and for the first time in a long time, she thinks he is actually looking at her and not through her. He reaches over and grabs the newspaper from her, their hands brushing against each other for a split second. 

He looks down at the jokes in front of him. His pointer finger grazes one cartoon joke in particular over and over again. She looks down at it, and a soft smile forms on her face at their favorite joke. The one joke that they always laughed the hardest at all her life.

He looks up and she sees the crinkle under his eyes and the grin on his lips.

“Ashley, you're here.”