"I wonder how Scoey is...."

was something the Senior Cat would say every so often. I would wonder too.

"Scoey" was not his actual name of course but it was how he was known.  He was a "first cousin once removed" to the Senior Cat - my second cousin. He was some years younger than I am. 

His death notice is in this morning's paper. It comes as no surprise as he had dementia. The medical profession said it was brought on by more than one knock to the head in an adventurous childhood and then the playing of contact sports. It changed him of course. We lost contact and only knew of the dementia because we saw him at the funeral of another cousin several years ago. He was there, knew who the Senior Cat was but could no longer hold a conversation. 

Dementia is a horrible thing. The people around the person with dementia are losing the person slowly.  The Senior Cat's closest friend is in a nursing home and doesn't recognise his wife or his children. I have seen other people I know go the same way. It is like a slow, lingering death.

Scoey really didn't need to have it happen to him. He had a rough start in life as it was. His mother died of TB contracted during her war service years.  Somehow she managed to survive, marry and then bear a child almost a decade later. It was not really diagnosed until she fell ill again with the same symptoms as before in the first year of young Scoey's life. Mother and son were living on the dairy farm with Scoey's grandparents. His mother died when he had just turned one. His father was away at sea at the time. Scoey lived with his grandparents for the first eight years of his life. Then his father came home from sea. He remarried and took Scoey away from the farm. I don't think Scoey ever recovered from that. His father died when Scoey was in his teens and I think that made it even harder.

Scoey was a fiercely loyal supporter of the clan. When we had the first big clan gathering or reunion - largely held to get the Senior Cat's generation together - Scoey was there to help. He wanted those he considered to be his real family right around him. Knowing his history he got plenty of support - after all, what are clans for? He became part of our lives in an "in and out" sort of way. 

His job was working those massive cranes - the really big cranes they have on multi-storey building sites - and other dinosaur like pieces of equipment. The generation down from me were in awe of his skill. It was skill too. He could a giant slab of building material exactly into place first time around. He was in huge demand for that and went all over the country when there was something particularly difficult to be done. In between he played a lot of sport.

Scoey married and had two girls. His wife was a teacher. We liked her too. She understood how much he needed his "family", his clan. C....supported him in all matters relating to the clan. 

Then tragedy struck again. C... was diagnosed with cancer and died before she was sixty.  Despite the support from his girls it was clear Scoey was not coping well. They put it down to grief at first but then there were other incidents and the diagnosis of dementia was made. Yes, he may have developed dementia anyway. Anyone can develop dementia but this was said to be hastened by all the physical knocks Scoey took while playing on the farm and playing sport. 

I think it was also brought on by his childhood. He loved his grandparents dearly and being taken from them at age eight to live with the father he had barely seen and didn't really know unsettled him. He needed his family.

Perhaps that is why, for as long as he was driving, he would sometimes call in to see the Senior Cat. He would sometimes arrive around lunchtime on his way from one job to another. He never expected me to give him something to eat. He would just bring in his own food and I would put the kettle on and bring out the "other large mug" for him. Scoey and the Senior Cat would sit there and talk about all manner of things. A lot of it was the "remember when" sort of conversation. Scoey needed that. We missed him when he could no longer get here and we could no longer go to him.