Once upon a time, he strode into a room, shoulders broad, chest out and spine straight, gaze outward. He carried himself with purpose. Although it was a struggle for him to maintain his weight, he always looked trim in his perfectly tailored suits. Upon first glance he seemed at least 5 inches taller than his 5 feet, 6 inches. When engaged in conversation, he was so focused that he could make others feel as though they were the only people in the world who mattered.

Now I am thirteen and he is different. His shoulders are stooped and shrunken rather than broad, his chest curves inward. When someone outside of the family speaks to him, his brow wrinkles, his mouth turns down, and his pupils dart from side to side as if trying to locate something. Occasionally, his face lights up. He haltingly says a name or makes a reference, looking at his fellow conversationalist with bright, childlike expectancy. “Did I get it right,” his eyes seem to ask?

Once a day, he takes a tour of the neighborhood, the same round trip encompassing the same four long blocks each time. Before he goes out, he gingerly sets a little porkpie army hat on his head. He doesn’t so much walk as shuffle, going slowly and keeping his feet close to the ground. His hands stay in one of two positions, either crossed tightly against his chest or held stiffly and barely moving at his sides. The younger kids in the neighborhood follow him. Sometimes, when they think that no adults are watching, they pelt him with gravel. When my little sister is close by, they add taunts, “No brain father! No brain father!” My sister cries, but my father pays no visible notice.

Once flat, my father’s stomach now falls over his belt and pulls his worn burgundy cardigan out to absurd proportions. This is because, forgetting that he has eaten, he makes fifteen to twenty trips to the refrigerator everyday. As he grips the icebox handle, his eyes shift slyly from left to right and back again. If someone else is in the vicinity, he grabs the water jug. When he thinks that no one is looking, he grabs whatever is closest – a piece of fruit, a slice of lunchmeat, the rare pastry. If someone happens upon him during one of these raids, he quickly closes the door and stuffs into a pants pocket whatever he hasn’t yet stuffed into his mouth.

After I turn sixteen, he supplants his refrigerator hunts with surreptitious forays to my car, where he steals cigarette butts from the ashtray. He smokes them despite the fact that he must fight for his every breath. Always labored, his breathing has its own odd rhythm: rattle, rasp, cough, rattle, and rasp.

When not walking around the block, sneaking out to my car, or foraging for food, he sits in his favorite chair. It is low, with mission style wood arms and deep leather cushions. He makes grunting noises as he struggles to bend his legs and back into it. There, he falls asleep to the ever-present sounds of the TV, double chin resting against his chest, head slightly bobbing, lips flapping with wheezy snores.

Or he reads the newspaper. He folds it carefully, and lays it in his lap. His eyes squint, following the movement of his right forefinger as it traces lines of text. Listen carefully and one hears him whisper the words that he is reading Listen very carefully and one realizes that he has become trapped in a single paragraph, reading it over 20 times in a day. As he reads, the fingers of his left hand work over his scalp, picking at small scabs. Upon releasing one from the skin, he flicks it onto the carpet. This habit has created a quilt pattern on top of his head, one of small red and brown patches surrounded by unruly hair gone prematurely grey.
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One of my earliest and most persistent memories was that of my mother pounding my father’s back in order to loosen the phlegm in his lungs. Why? My father had early onset emphysema or “Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease” (COPD). My father’s doctor postulated that the disease’s early onset was due to my father’s WWII service as a high flyer bomber, for the cabins were not properly pressurized.

When I was thirteen, both of my father’s lungs collapsed and he went into a coma. While skilled doctors and a strong heart kept him alive, he woke up with permanent brain damage. The part of his mind that was destroyed was responsible for recording new memories. Afterwards, he could recall what he’d been – a writer for CBS Playhouse, a member of the team that established the Dallas Theatre Center, a copyrighter and owner of an advertising firm. However, he could not remember reading the newspaper only two minutes before. For a man who made his living with his mind, could there have been a crueler form of dementia?

Because it made breathing such a tortured experience, my father’s emphysema brought with it personality changes - nervousness and frustration that deepened to depression and sudden anger as the disease progressed. Father’s Days, indeed all holidays, were fraught with anxiety because we never knew if he would “blow." Yet despite his ill temper, my father was my world. If my sister was my mother’s daughter, I was Daddy’s Little Girl. I knew with certainty that he loved me unconditionally. Family taboos made his illness impossible to talk about, but I silently mourned his early mental and emotional departure from my life. I often wondered what he would have become, what he would have produced had he not suffered from this illness.

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After “getting sick," my father occasionally stops at his old typewriter during the course of his daily rounds. My mother has moved it from his home office to the dining room table in hopes that writing will bring him back to himself.

As he steps to the machine, he touches it tentatively and then draws back. He repeats these actions several times. Finally, he sits, his eyes darting back and forth over the keys in the same way that they do when he mets an old acquaintance. Hands shaking, he slowly puts in a piece of paper, working carefully so that the sheet goes in straight. He raises his fingers to the keys and strikes. Without hesitancy, his fingertips begin to play.

Long after my father passes, my mother gives me a copy of his last typings. The first entry begins, “This is going to be called, ‘Anatomy of Memory.’ It will be a series of essays about my experiences in meeting people and how they react when I say, ‘I’m sorry, but an illness has damaged my brain, and I have trouble remembering. Do I know you?’ You’ve got to admit, it’s a rather individual way of looking at the world.”

One of the entries on the last page reads:
“today i have done nothing of any great importance
“and tomorrow i’ll do more of the same”