ALWAYS AN ARTIST

Worked till noon and Sabrina came to get me at work with Bob.
Bob sat at the front of the store and told Sabrina how he could
walk home from there. He had it all correct.

HOWEVER on Jan 1 2007 he tried to come to the store, took a wrong turn,
and walked 6 miles into a closed youth camp.
It was a miracle that he found the street again into town , this is a huge camp, no one was there in the office because it being New Year Day.
A lady stopped for him along the road and gave him a ride back.
He did not remember where he lived, he did not have his ID necklace on.
He sat in the car and noticed a shopping bag from Steinmart and then he knew.
He said: My wife works there.
The lady dropped him off at the store and he decided to go sit on a bench in front
of the market next to us.
They called the police and said a confused old man was sitting there and did not
know where to go.
By then we had all the cops looking for him plus every one I knew driving around
the town.
He had been gone 5 hours and walked 6 miles!

Well, that was a year ago and I sure hope he never tries this again.
Your heart just sinks when you think of what could have happened.
An angel helped him out in many ways.

The rest of the afternoon was scheduled with a visit to an old friend who is 91.
I cant imagine being 91.
I do not have the money to live to 91. Yikes, that is another 16 years!
Bob sat quietly during our visit. He did not remember the lady but he remembered his paintings on the wall. Oddly enough he also had done a cat under a Christmas tree but not his usual tight style, he had done it rather loosely and he did not remember that work at all. The others he remembered.

An artist with a soul for nothing else but his art, from the time he was little.
His mother told me that he would come home with a bouquet of wild flowers and would be so proud. His older brothers would laugh at him and called him a sissy but he stuck to his
guns. While they were fixing cars , he went to the ballet with friends and listened to classical music. His father was a country music fan and he built his own shed in the back of the house so he could listen to the country stuff and not be annoyed with Bob and his Mozart.

Bob fell in love during high school with opera. His favorite was Carmen.
When we met he said only 2 women could pry him away from me and that was the opera singer Rise Stevens and Jane Froman who sang for ww2 soldiers in her hay day.
Lucky for me they were 2 old broads by then and they never did show up at our door.

The artist soul knows his own work but does not remember Carmen from Aida.
He listens to the music, still does not cotton to the Beatles nor my favorite Elvis.
The artist still lives in the brain cells , so is the kind gentleman.
Even when he tells me that I should go home and not stay the night , he is a gentleman.
He tells me he does not want strange women in the house.
My son said:"Mom, he still has all his values intact even with Alzheimer".

It is not always so with that disease. A third cousin had a doll for a husband, he was the nicest man and adored his wife. In the late stages of A. He became quite violent. SHe had to put him in a home where he was strapped in bed till the end of his life. He had become this violent.
He was either on drugs to calm him or strapped. It was horrible for her too.
Not only that he now spoke in German when he never had even learned the language and he also swore in German.

They say if you meet a person with Alzheimer then you have met one person with it.
Every one reacts differently. There are no set patterns. Not everyone becomes violent, not everyone last 20 years, not everyone dies from the same body malfunctions.
There are similarities , of course, but you never know what the patient will do one day from the other. There can be surprises every day.