Dad is pushing 90 and has dementia. As one friend recently said, “He's way out of warranty.” But other than the brain-wasting disease, and the general feebleness that comes with having torn so many pages off the calendar, he’s in remarkably good health. It’s just the dementia. This ain’t the first rodeo for my family. Between us, my wife and I are four outta four for parents with the disease. Yep,100%. So, we know the drill. Dad’s home in Houston took on a bit of the water fr

My dad sits on our porch and fidgets with his cigar. Napping and smoking fill most of Jack Ray’s days now. His cigars are bundle-packed Churchills, pungent and imposing. He smokes two, sometimes three a day. And he asks questions: “Where’s Diane? Are you going to take me home? Whose house is this? Yours? Really? How long have you lived here? Have I been here before?” Once this loop of questions gets started, it’s difficult to derail. But not from a lack of trying, at least on

“Sis, let’s take a drive to Jiggs and Maude’s to see the dogwoods and redbuds,” my granddad would say on a sweet spring day when we visited at Easter time. My mom and I would load into their boat of a car, Mom in front to enjoy the opportunity to be close to her dad, and me in the back with Grandma Willis’ busy hands and crochet projects. No wire hanger was safe in the presence of my grandmother, as the harsh metal things were wrapped in looped yarn and adorned with a plastic