Lisa Romeo writes in Playing Along With My Dad’s Alzheimer’s Confusion:
Deep down I suppose I sensed there was no value in explaining to him that this was not a hotel, especially because hotels, after all, were places that had always meant refuge and pleasure; places he’d felt comfortable. Hotels were where he’d always been fit enough to swim and smart enough to play baccarat. They were places of beauty, indulgence, and order. I knew in my heart that it was not my duty to make him understand — as if I could — that this was a hospital, that he was broken and sick, and that the only “activities” here were uncomfortable and undignified. What good would it do, I reasoned, to replace his imagined “lousy hotel” conversation with one that was more realistic?
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Personally though, to have hope was about finding a moment — many moments as it turned out — when Dad and I could meet each other on mutually comforting, historically familiar ground. Every time he talked about hotels, I remembered all the lovely days we’d spent in suites and lobbies, at poolside or white-tablecloth restaurants, from Vienna to the Virgin Islands. When he talked of booking a flight or hiring a limo, it busted open the shared vault of family history we’d made together wandering the world. If that past world of ours could serve as a salve for him, in the midst of his psychic turmoil and physical pain, I was more than willing to follow.
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