Creative Everyday

 Always wary, no one can take advantage of my dear husband without his eagle eye seeing what’s up.  Yesterday, while he was at the day care center, he told me that he “put up with” two ladies “from another country” (being politically correct), stood up and danced because they asked him to be their partner.  While he was dancing another day care participant moved his jacket to a different chair.  When he walked back to his seat where he had left his jacket, he was “pissed.” In no uncertain terms he said “that’s my chair!”

To protect his chair and avoid further conflict, he refused to dance again, sitting with his jacket carefully hanging on the seat back.

You might be wondering about how I found this out.  It is the reply to my daily query: how was your day honey?  He cannot answer this question anymore.  I am so excited when he says a few words that I can understand or piece together as in a phrase or thought but this story was full of emotion. 

I ask myself what would it be like if I did not know how my day was or even what I had experienced throughout the day. The day may have come and gone without reflective practice; in its simplest form, thinking about or reflecting on what you do. It is closely linked to the concept of learning from experience. Spent and gone hours.  Dementia has stolen from my husband the ability to reflect and make choices about time, what to do next, to plan meaningful, purposeful or just lazy activity. At the end of his day, he does not feel sadness when he answers everyday, his day was “OK and how was yours honey?”