Yup, my father-in-law rmains afflicted… no miracle cure. Last night we stopped and sat on his bench at the MBL. There are a bunch of benches, each with a plaque. Ther’s something poignant about the fact that the other benches have birth and death dates on them, but Walt’s bench doesn’t. I suppose when he passes away, they can fill in the blanks.
He’s wonderfully affable. He’s generally quiet and present, and occasionally reflects on something in the conversation around him. We took a walk. On the walk I learned more about his illness. He got into a repetitive thing, re-stating the same interesting observation from time to time, as if it was new.
I’m grateful that his wife is caring for him, and I know that he’s well off in his own house… that a shift to some kind of “long term care” (what I uncharitably think of as a warehouse) would be bad for him. He reads his Boston Globe and does simple word puzzles and he smiles and when we left last night, this man who was at my wedding to his daughter twenty years ago shook my hand and said, “It was good to meet you.”
