I knew these days were coming. In face, I’m sure I blogged about it last Christmas, or perhaps the Christmas before.

Back when it started to sink in for me that the days I considered bad memory days, where he’d ask the same question a few times before he finally remembered and did the occasionally silly thing and then chastise himself for knowing better than that – would be the days I’d remember fondly as ‘when Jim was doing better’.

We’re hitting another milestone.

He’s having even more difficulty remembering old memories from when he was a young man and a child. He can tell me parts of a story but not put them together to tell it in order.

My daughter was born before I got the dog, wasn’t she? No, Jim. You got the dog before you got married.

Was my brother still alive when I had the dog? Yeah babe, the two of you would take him to the park together and throw a stick for him to chase.

You didn’t meet him though did you? No Babe, your brother and the dog were both gone before I met you. (40+ years earlier, in case you’re wondering)

I don’t try to correct him any more unless I can see he’s struggling to find where his memory got off track. If I don’t then, he’ll repeat the story until he can twist it to make it flow, even if it no longer makes sense. Then the next time, he remembers it the twisted way, instead of how it actually happened.

And then I realize, very soon, I’ll be fondly remembering days like today, ‘when Jim was doing better’.