“You look like a guy I used to know,” my father said as we walked into the memory care home. “Yeah. Look just like you. Big feet, gap in the teeth. Yeah.”

“Hey Pop. I look familiar?” I hugged him and he hugged me back.

“Yeah, you’ll pass.”

While walking into the common area, he introduced me as “the baby of the family.” My ears perk; we figured this might happen, that I’ll be confused with my uncle, his brother, who is his youngest sibling. But as we sat down, we were regaled of tales of running through the woods with the boys, woods that JUST SO HAPPENED to be outside the facility we were sitting in. Because, you see, we were in Arkansas, not suburban Houston. We were just a few blocks from his house, of course.

I told him that someone was taking about him, and when he asked who, I said my mother’s name. He looked at me and grinned. “That almost was your mama.”

Semantics aside, of course (because I’m pretty sure she’s not “almost” my mother), the visit went…how I expected. He claimed to have worked with other residents in the facility and insisted he hadn’t eaten lunch, both things untrue.

We sat with him for a couple of hours, and he dipped in and out of the reality we live in. My sister had warned me beforehand of some of his proclivities, but the one that really got her in her emotions was the fact that you could not tell him goodbye.

When he first got to the memory care facility, my sister would get him settled and say goodbye, and he’d rear up, demanding to be taken home. A door opening was his chance to escape, to get outside and make it home. My father is still in good physical shape for being 83, but the prospect of him escaping has caused him to rear up on attendants and nurses, once shoving one out the way in order to make it to the door.

So, we can’t tell him goodbye.

I get up, tell him I have to use the bathroom, and I’ll be right back. And that was the last I saw of my father that day.

All I can hope for is his care; that he’s safe, content, takes his meds, and is comfortable. We can’t take him back home; he’s almost blind in one eye and forgets to eat. His short term memory is shot, and he can talk with you for long periods of time about really nothing at all. The weather, the memories of him being a kid, of the place he worked for years. And you think, wow, he’s actually okay.

Then…no. And that’s really hard to watch. And you can’t argue with him, because what good does that do?

No Pop, you didn’t work with that lady sitting over there 30 years ago. No Pop, you are not in Arkansas. No Pop, I am not your brother, and my sister is not your sister. No Pop, you ate 20 minutes ago. No Pop, you had eye surgery yesterday. No Pop, you haven’t taken your meds yet, or I watched you just take them. No Pop, you never made it to Paris, or traveled the country, or did what you told us you were going to do the past 40 years.

No, Pop.

But you’re comfy, albeit confused. You’re watched 24/7, even while I’m sure your mind is going a mile a minute.

And this is where we are.