Today I am no more, absent in my reality, anonymous to self and a stranger to my journey.
His eyes searched mine, while his nerves trembled a while. But then a frown appeared and his struggle ended up futile.
I caught his gaze and smiled with the desire to ease his quest. He narrowed his wise brows, yet stared with deep regret.
I tried the clumsy face, the comic one, the one that always made him roar with laughter. He responded with an unfamiliar smile. The oblivious eyes, that once again failed to recognize.
I made conversation to strike a customary note. He nodded a few times, and added a word or two. But then again, the silence came through, and made me all invisible to his being.
I decided to pick familiar names. He said it was just him and everything else was missing. He insisted on traveling in a plane. That he had a ticket. His face turned quizzical at his own revelations.
I became quiet. He appeared exhausted. Terribly lost and confused. Then he gave it one more try. "You are Nuzhat," he said to me. Crushed, I faked a smile. "No Abba, I am Shama." He slowly rubbed his eyes. "Who is Shama?"
Nobody. No one. Nothing. But he didn't hear my screaming heart. "Shama, your daughter."
Dementia hit my father some two weeks back. And despite all the understanding, all the logic and every medical explanation, there lies no ease in the realization that you are now nothing but a nameless face to him. What is a daughter without her father?
The struggle is real. It hits the entire family. You keep smiling to help each other out. You tell him what he needs to hear, you tell him again and again to keep his thoughts connected. You appear calm upon his insistence of calling his wife to talk to her, then realizing she is no more.
From the time that I witnessed my grandma struggle with dementia, it turned out to become my greatest fear. I used to shudder at the thought of becoming a nobody. Nobody to the only two people in the world who know you and proclaim their unconditional love.
So today I am no more, absent in my reality, anonymous to self and a stranger to my own journey. And though I will continue to gently remind him of who I am, the familiarity and comfort of being someone's daughter is lost forever.
