Alzheimer’s broke his silence

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Like many men of my generation, I was not very close to my father. He was a quiet man who rarely showed affection. When he did, it was subtle, like the way he would gently put his hand on my head, or when his eyes would soften upon seeing me after his long and exhausting work day.

As I grew older, however, his silence became an invisible barrier between us. By 10, I was convinced he didn’t love me. Sitting in the back seat of our station wagon on a family trip, I made a bet with myself: If he said anything to me -- directly to me -- within the following 24 hours, it meant he loved me.

He went 41 hours.

I grew up, went to college far from home, worked hard at finding a career, finally returned to Los Angeles and settled down with a family of my own. My father and I spoke every so often, but usually just as a prelude to my longer conversations with my mother. We never called the other directly just to talk. There was a wall of silence between us -- but by now it seemed normal.

Then one day, 15 years ago, a call came from my mother. My father had fallen down and was at UCLA Hospital. I was used to the idea that he would die young of heart disease. His mother had died at 55, and he’d had two bypass operations, the first when I was 16. So I was unprepared for his diagnosis: He had a variant of Alzheimer’s disease.

Salon.com > Barry Michels

Alzheimer’s broke his silence