Telling the minister

Church has always been a big part of Dad's life.  Like a lot of men of his generation he finds it very difficult to talk about his faith, but it's helped to make him who he is, and I mean that mostly in a good way.  He's a decent, honest, clean-living and kind-hearted man; if he's also a bit of a Phillistine and kind of Puritanical, though not in a kill-joy sense, maybe that's partly down to church but also to the fact that he's only ever lived in the one town and is neither widely travelled nor widely read.  He'll complain loudly enough if he has a grievance, or if he think someone else is getting a raw deal, but there's not a malicious bone in his body.

These days he gets a lift to morning service.  The time when he could walk to his church, about a mile away, is long gone; he has an electric disability scooter but reckons there are some dodgy pavements along the way and I can well believe it.

After he had the diagnosis I thought it was time to put his fellow worshippers in the picture so I rang the minister.  She has several churches to look after of which Dad's isn't the largest, so she doesn't know him well; but promised to have a discreet word with a few of his friends.

Next day she rang me back.  This was fascinating.  Her mention of dementia to those who've known Dad over the years opened the floodgates of insight: Oh so that's what's been going on, is it?  And this was from people who hadn't seen the inside of his house, which is the dead giveaway, but had only his public behaviour to go on - and when I've seen him in public I've seen little to suggest there's anything amiss.

But to his old friends, the little signs were there and now made sense.  Like the particular difficulty he has in getting into a car: it's not so much he's stiff and takes his time to bend under the top of the door cavity, but a sense that he doesn't know where the top of his head is and clonks himself on the frame more often than not.  Like chuntering on, which he's done for years, getting his sentences in a knot, but now even more so; repeating himself, telling people things he should have realised they would already know, and looking blank when given new information, his face betraying all too plainly that he hasn't grasped it.

The minister made an interesting comment on that.  Dementia sufferers, she said, can have a relaxed expression that can make them look younger - because they no longer have the capacity to get stressed about things.  So if my dad's house is a tip, it's not his problem.  He doesn't realise it's anybody's problem.  I thought this was quite shrewd, although I'd want to say that sometimes the exact opposite may be true, depending on the pwd - person with dementia, I hereby adopt this abbreviation (following pwa, person with AIDS).  They can get very worked up about certain problems, real or imaginary ("when's Susan going to come?") and will not be placated now matter how many times you tell them it's fine: Susan has already been/will be coming soon/lives in New Zeland now/died in 1986 or whatever.

I hope I'm spared that one.  But then I'd hope that all carers might be spared that one and some have to put up with it, so why should I be exempt?  Who knows what I might be in for?  I know better than to expect God to give me an special dispensation just because I've been on the side of the angels all these years: that's exactly the mistake Mum made, thinking God would look after her because she'd been such a good girl (and she had too, a real saint) and then letting her have a couple of strokes.  She never got over the feeling of being betrayed by the Man Upstairs.

What I do know is that Dad's church will look out for him as best they can.  It's an elderly congregation as so many are these days so there are limits to what they can do, but at least they know what they're dealing with, they love him and have known him long enough to be able to recognise when something he says or does just "isn't Dennis".  That sort of support, which they might not think amounts to much, is beyond price for me, given that I live so far away.

Christianity at its best is like this: it's not about believing stupid things or starting wars with infidels,  It's about being a pastoral community that supports its members, without disdaining them if they start to lose the plot.  Is that so contemptible, Professor Dawkins?