Kids can be so funny, can’t they?

Driving home after a weekend in Granddad’s house in Galway, I found myself in the middle of a totally unplanned explanation of my dad’s memory problems. Princess Firstborn had asked me what a cigarette was and I explained that they were dirty things that grown up people put in their mouths and smoked.

 

“You know the way Granddad forgets his words and people’s names all the time?” I said.

 

“I thought he was only joking,” she replied.

 

I explained that sometimes he is only joking, my dad having always been a messer, but that because he smoked too many cigarettes when he was younger, his brain doesn’t work properly any more. That’s why he can no longer remember his own name or the name of his dog, Sam but could get into a car and drive from his house in Galway to ours in Cork no problem at all. It has affected some parts of his brain and not others.

 

I could almost hear the cogs turning in her own little brain as she mulled this over. She adores her ‘Granddad in Galway’ and he adores her, his first grandchild. It is his grandkids who keep him going through the anger and frustration he feels over first losing his wife too young and now losing his ability to communicate with the world around him bit by bit.

 

He is in the early stages of vascular dementia which means he has good days and bad days. We must treasure the good days for they are the memories we want our children to have of their crazy (and that has nothing to do with the dementia), fun, pigheaded, loving grandfather.

 

Later that evening, I heard Princess Firstborn explain in all seriousness to her own dad that “Granddad Seamus’ brain is broken and that’s why he calls “here doggy, doggy” to the cat”.

 

I couldn’t help but laugh and my dad will too because one thing he still hasn’t lost is his fantastic sense of humour.