At the end of October, I visited my dad at his nursing home and told him we would be traveling for much of the following week. He seemed to track the discussion, although he’s been slow, sleeping an awful lot, to the point that even he comments on sleeping too much.

When I arrived, I had to wake him up from a pretty sound sleep, as has been the recent norm. Then I worked the buttons on the little control panel to raise the head of the bed so that he was almost in a sitting position, a posture that encourages interaction, or at least the appearance of interaction.

As he listened to my description of our upcoming short trip, he got a funny look on his face, hard to describe, his lively eyes and cheeks conveying a touch of guilty excitement as if he was ready to make a profound confession of hidden pleasures.

“You wouldn’t believe the interesting travels I’ve had the past few months,” he said, looking directly at me, eyes dancing, emphasis on he word “believe“, conveying that he’s also amazed by it all.

“Man….”, drawing the word out as he shook his head, thinking about where he’s been.

I tried to go with the flow.

“Really? What was the most interesting trip?”

I waited, ready for another surrealistic description of a sales trip to Hilo, or meeting with clients on Kauai.

He drew back into his pillow, eyes suddenly far away, a veil of concentration covering his features. He’s trying to follow his thoughts back to those “interesting travels”, to recover and share them.

Seconds pass. Silence. More seconds. He squints into the distance of shifting memories. The silence extends almost to the point of discomfort, but I’m an experienced reporter, I’m used to letting silence work for me during interviews, creating pressure on the other person to say something to penetrate the silence, put an end to it. I wait.

Finally, he shakes his head again, but this time not for emphasis. It’s an apology as he shrugs off his attempt to recover those travels that just moments before had spoken so vividly to him.

“I’m not a good rememberer anymore,” he says lightly, his easy tone contradicted by the weight of this admission.

I let the silence grow again as we share the moment of candor.

This time I’m the one who speaks, breaking into the shared silence. I remind him that dinner will be delivered at 5 p.m. directly to his bed, since he regularly chooses not to get dressed and eat this meal out in the common room down the hall. He’s surprised, although the food is served at the same time every day. Then I say that I’m leaving and will see him again after the trip. I touch his shoulder as I stand, give it a squeeze, assuring us both that he is still there, and the rest doesn’t matter.

Today it’s a long wait for the elevator back down to the ground floor.