Wallet

When I’m staying in a hotel I make a point of picking a spot to stack the really important small things. The room key, my cell phone, the car keys, my sun glasses, my travel mug, and my wallet. I learned –from my father– that “spreading out” means losing stuff, and missing important things means raising stress levels for everyone staying in the room.

I went on the last family vacation. I kept finding dad walking off with my wallet. The 1st few times I saw him pick it up and I would just say “yeah that’s my stuff. I put it there on purpose.” He would put it down and go do something else. As the days passed he became more insistent on picking it up. I would remind him that “It’s my wallet and I put it there for the night”. He would leave it alone for a while, then maybe an hour or less he would be back looking over my pile of stuff. And I would have to ask him for my wallet. He seemed to hand it over without a fuss.

I think it was the 2nd to last night I went out to get some water bottles from the trunk of the car. I went to my stash to put the car and room keys down. My cell phone and wallet were gone. So I started a panicked search for them.   Found dad wiping my cell phone screen down. I had a brief moment of calm before I saw the pile of stuff on the bed next to him. Dad had emptied the contents of my wallet. Mom hadn’t noticed what dad was doing. My driver license insurance cards, membership cards; everything but the little cash I carry. My level of panic and confusion spiked. “What are you doing with my Wallet!?” I snapped.   (When you don’t understand how FTD changes people’s behavior, it’s really hard to keep calm!)

I took my stuff back. And began putting everything back into the correct place. Wheels didn’t seem to understand why I was so upset. He nodded when I said this is my wallet. Mom tried telling him that that was my stuff that I really wanted to be left alone, It was the things that we really needed to keep track of. For that night that seemed to be enough. Last night was the worst.

We had done the last of our site seeing. And  just taking our time cleaning and packing for the drive home in the morning. Dad had become obsessed with my wallet again. He got more aggressive about it. Telling him it was mine, or asking him to hand it to me wasn’t enough. As the afternoon wore on he started to get physical when I would reach for it. He Didn’t hurt me but would pull it away and squeeze it tight trying to stop me taking it back. Mom got fed up with it all and managed to get dad to hand it to her. When she handed it to me she told me that I would have to keep it out of sight. So I put it in the pocket of my dirty jeans. That seemed to be the solution. Until he went looking for it.

Sometime after dinner we were relaxing in the room. I had taken a shower, when i came out; mom was talking dad into handing over my jeans and my wallet. Dad wasn’t willing to hand them over. He had made a point of looking for this missing wallet, by checking the pockets of pants in the dirty laundry.  Which is what he would have done before the brain disease.  I stood back and let mom handle it, it was clear that my insisting on having my wallet wasn’t working. After some explaining and coaxing, mom asked why he was so intent on having That wallet. He replied “It’s my wallet.. See, it’s got my credit card in it.”   

“No, that ‘s Justin’s wallet. It looks a lot like yours, but it’s his. Here, see this is his credit card.” Mom assured him. Dad didn’t buy that, because he had carried one that looked just like it for a long time. 

“When was he old enough to have a wallet? Why would he need a credit card?” Dad responded with some real conviction. The realization came:  he didn’t remember me as an adult.  At this point in my life I had been carrying a wallet for well over 32 years. I wasn’t sure that dad could recall any of those decades. The hours we spent in the truck ran errands or haul camping equipment for scouts. Doing repair on any of the cars and trucks the family had owned. Hanging out in the garage. chatting about whatever had our curiosity at that moment. He at least knew my name. What I wasn’t sure about is whether or not he really knew me by sight any more.

When they have trouble recalling major facts, like how old their child is, it doesn’t help to try and force them to remember or re-learn anything. If they do it will be entirely on their own, for unknown reasons. It won’t matter how gently you try to remind them, it will feel like an attack, or just be embarrassing to them. The end result will be things being worse down the road. That ability to recall and learn just isn’t there any more. Reasoning does not work and you mostly waste time.  You have to work within the limits of what they know.

Mom had dad look at my driver’s license, and showed him that it was my picture on it. . At that point he let her have the wallet.   Which I hide — in one of my boots under my jacket on the far side of my hotel bed.

written by JUSTIN VANCE