A few words about my dad…

Here’s the remix.

I’ve included FLAC files that are dry and with FX.

WORDS
He lives in the moment
When he’s happy, his face lights up
His eyes glow
When he’s concerned, overwhelmed, distraught
His entire being is devastated

He lives in the moment
One moment
Now
If it happened 2 minutes ago
It didn’t happen at all
There is no future
But there is a past
He can time-travel to a foggy memory
Pride fills in missing pieces
But it’s real to him
It’s the truth
And maybe it really is the truth
And what we thought we knew never was
And now we’ll never know

He lives in the moment
Distracted by strangers, he gawks
Captivated, lost in thought
I try to bring him back
Often resorting to waving my hand in his face
Repeating “Dad? Dad? Dad?” over and over
Even then, it’s hard to redirect him
He’s stuck with curiosity
He’s lost in the moment

He lives in the moment
Music transports him to the past
Whisking him away
He sings along
He makes up his own songs
He has a boom box and CDS of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and Joni Mitchell
And classical recordings of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach
He comes alive when he hears these sounds
But he doesn’t remember to push play

He lives in the moment
Repeating questions
Repeating stories
Each evening feels like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’
Never-ending lessons of patience
But often
He repeats the sweetest things possible
Love, admiration, gratitude
And I feel like the luckiest daughter
With the kindest father

He lives in the moment
Sometimes he’s aware, lucid
He’ll talk about his memory
He’ll say he doesn’t remember anything
But he’ll never forget me
I want believe it’s true
I cry, he cries
Sometimes it’s a question he asks
“Do you think my memory is going bad?”
I say “yes.”
Silence.
Sometime he’ll say that not remembering isn’t so bad
He’s happy
I want to believe it
And maybe he really is
Because he lives in the moment.