Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed Jim has lost even more of his ability to determine cause and effect. It’s been a slow, gradual progress since July 2017 when he began losing his complex thought capabilities but lately I’ve noticed he’s consistently missing simple associations. Or rather, the associations are there but they’ve becoming skewed in his brain so they aren’t always as you would expect.

For example, just before Christmas. we’d watch the news and talk about the pandemic, wearing masks and how gatherings are being discouraged. He will almost immediately wonder about who is going to his daughter’s on Christmas Eve. The news triggered him to remember the gathering but he couldn’t make the connection that the pandemic meant that she couldn’t have a party this year. Every time I reminded him that she couldn’t have a party because of Covid, he’d be surprised.

Like clockwork, each time the news ran a similar segment, we’d have the identical conversation over and over again.

What makes this weird, Jim remembers to put his mask on better than I do. I usually see him put his on and then have to run back upstairs to get one of mine. (I keep spares in the car just in case I don’t remember). I bought him a set of masks with the Raptors’ logo on them and keep them in the closet above his coats. Jim has adopted wearing a mask as part of his outside clothing. He puts one on before donning his jacket. Every time, without fail.

If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be fascinating to monitor how the memory retains some information and lets other aspects of the same issue/topic escape like water through a sieve.