Alzheimer's is a strange

affliction.
I had the opportunity to observe the Senior Cat's best friend close at hand yesterday - without any sort of noisy gathering around him. He and his wife had come for lunch.
Just getting K.... somewhere these days is an effort for B.... -  his wife.  He can still dress himself but he needs to be supervised. He had no idea where he was going until he got here. Then he recognised the house - but couldn't remember who lived here. I could hear  all this as they came up to our front door (which is, confusingly, at the side of the house). Then he saw the Senior Cat and recognised him and immediately started sparring with him - something they have done for all their long friendship. His words were not as fluent as they might once have been but you could see that, somewhere in the fog of his current existence, he was still the same man with that same wacky sense of humour.
But conversation didn't flow as freely as it once did. The easy ebb and flow of their old conversation has gone. We are losing K.... He told B... he didn't want any bread when he did. He got confused trying to use the butter. She tries to be patient but told me that she is not as patient as I am. (I told her I am much younger and should be more patient.)
K...has been in  this house more times than I can remember but he could not remember where the bathroom is. I had to show him and then B...had to go and supervise him again. It distresses her.
K... and B.... had been brought here by a driver from the package of assistance they now get.  We had to arrange it so that the driver  brought them at a time when that person had other errands to do in the city. Their daughter M....called in to take them home as she lives about 100m down the road. Without her they could no longer stay in their own home.
M... still works but was finishing early in order to pick them up. "I can log on at home and do some more tonight", she told me. 
But around 3pm K.... was getting agitated. He told B.... "I don't want to drive home in the dark."
She explained that he wasn't driving. (He hasn't driven for some years.) "M...,your daughter, is coming to get us."
Oh, that was all right then.
And then, ten minutes or so later, he said this again. "I told you, M... is coming to get us."
   "No you didn't dear,"  he told her.
And so it went on until M... did arrive to get them. Each time it was clear he had completely forgotten that he had been told anything. He could remember some things from the past. He could recognise other things but he could not remember things that had happened.
He won't remember today that he was here yesterday.
It wasn't  until that happened that the Senior Cat really began to  understand a little of how difficult it is for B....  He said to me this morning, "Do I ever do that?"
No, he doesn't. He knows if he has forgotten something. He will tell me, "I'm sorry. I've forgotten what you said...."
I know the Senior Cat hates being old. He's frustrated with himself. He wants to do things and cannot do them. But... he still remembers most things. He can still read a book and enjoy an intellectual conversation. 
He knows it too. When they had gone he sat there for a bit and then said, "I'm very lucky really. Would you mind shutting the shed?"
I'll happily open the big door while he can do something inside - however little.