He wakes up in the very early morning, sometimes two am sometimes four. The time doesn’t really matter to him as he is unaware of the day or the time, the month or the year. So he asks and if I don’t answer he repeats my name over and over each time a little louder until I have no choice except to respond for if I say why did you wake me up he’ll say “just answer the question.” I have found that if I answer him immediately and then say I won’t answer any more questions he might go silent for at least a few minutes and I can fall back into a light sleep.

The questions that he consistently asks are who killed JFK, what happened to Oswald and Jack Ruby which then segues into what happened to Robert Kennedy. This morning his obsession was “when did Harvey die?” Four years ago I say. “What did he die of and then again he’ll ask how long ago. We eventually move onto Carl, Jessie, Miriam, Audrey, my Uncle Sidney, Sol, Harold and Lenny G. Then he asks do you speak to Harvey’s, Harold’s or Carl’s wife?”…..and so the morning that began at two or four eventually passes until I finally get out of bed make my coffee take a shower and walk the dog. He does not stop talking until he finally falls back asleep around an hour or two later.

This morning at approximately three thirty I awoke to a song. “A la mem, a la mem, a la mem kah temple mazel mazel cross word puzzle, 171 rah rah sis boom bah.” This was his Boy Scout troop song when he was ten or eleven. Nights before last he recited the Gettysburg address, Paul Reveres Ride or Captain my Captain.

It’s impossible for me to get angry because I know that he is hanging on for dear life to whatever memory he still has. It’s impossible for me to get angry because I know that if I was the one with the memory problem I know exactly how I would want to be treated. It’s impossible for me to get angry because too often he makes me laugh. I know I could get infuriated, instead I get frustrated. I know I could easily yell at him and tell him to please be quiet, instead I wish for selective deafness.

I do all this without a thought because I know that my husband who was once upon a time my very best friend has no future; that his present is just a fleeting moment that will immediately be forgotten and that all of his memory is a flashback.