Insight or Intuition? Real or Imagined? PART II

One thing I did previously was to create what I call Gregory's Memory Book in which 8x10 portrait type photographs of the people in his life are placed.

We have looked through the book only a few times with me naming each person. Sometimes I explain their relationship. Maybe with more practice he will be able to get through the entire book without loosing his focus or maybe I'll divide it into family, friends, neighbors, pets, etc.

I never mention that some of them might have passed on; like his or my mom and dad. I made the mistake of explaining to him, as we reached a pet's photograph, that the pet was dead. He got very sad and cried as if it the pet had just died and this was the first time he had gotten the news. I leaned my lesson.

We haven't looked at the Memory Book for a while and yesterday's experience (To see yesterday's post CLICK HERE. Opens in a new window.) tells me that I need to take the book out more often and go through it with Gregory.

Gregory now has a 42" flat screen TV on his dresser and I am able to hook it up to my iPhone. We use this to "FaceTime" with family and being such a large screen, Gregory is able to focus on the person with whom we are talking. It was almost impossible to do so when we used just the iPhone.

I will attempt to use the photos on my iPhone, sent to the large screen, to visit some of Gregory and my previous vacations. Since photographs of vacations are something that are always in the past it may not be too difficult for Gregory to revisit. I do not know if he will lament his inability to travel now or return to some of these sites but we will see. I don't think so.

Depending on how these go I might try revisiting some of his architecture projects photographs or other activities in which he can no longer participate like painting with Nancy Rosen or family parties.

Again, I will keep you up to date on how this progresses.

A Play in A Series of Poems

I have written many pieces of poetry chronicling the path which I have traveled with Gregory, my life partner of over 35 years, who was diagnosed with young onset Alzheimer's Disease some ten years ago when he was fifty five years old. For the most part, the feedback on my work has been favorable. 

For a next project, wouldn't it be interesting to try to write a screen play in which the audience would experience what a person with Alzheimer's goes through and what those who love him endure? It probably wouldn't be hard for me to write the screen play because I have so much material from which to draw.

The question, however, is who would want to watch it? Who would want to sit through some 90 minutes with one intermission of heaviness, sadness, frustration, confusion, depression and tears even if laced with love, compassion, insight, and humor?