I’m still working my way through the detritus of a long life left behind in my dad’s bedroom after he was taken to the hospital last November and then moved directly into a nursing home.

It’s draining, beyond simply the physical activity. It’s an intimate process, trying to decipher the meaning of different items and making quick judgements of value, personal, historical, and monetary. It hasn’t been easy.

I think we often do this kind of sorting after someone has died. In this case, my dad is still very much alive although memory impaired. I’m setting aside things to take and ask him about. On a good day, he’ll remember and be able to tell me.

Yesterday I found a list written in longhand on what looks like a roll of cash register receipt paper. The resulting little scroll was in the back of the bottom drawer in his dresser.

At the top, he wrote, “Mothers treasure…Thy will be done.”

I don’t know when this list was written out, or why its items were chosen, or who it was intended for.

So here’s the list. Most items I’ve located. Some still missing. Some chipped, all dusty, all very modest, with the exception of the canoe paddles. But they cut a broad swath through his nearly 96 years.

For the visually inclined, I also made a short video (in Quicktime movie format).

39. Koa Bowl made by Harris Warren

38. Gold Medal, past president & founder, Waikiki Surf Club

37. Sculpted fish by Helen. (I think he’s referring to the small ceramic fish wall plaque with this message–“Early to bed, early to rise, fish all day, make up lies”)

36. Mantle match holder from Vista Street home mantle (his family home was on Vista Street in Long Beach, California)

35. Desk Pen sets

34. Duffer golf award (a joke award)

33. HBGFC 1971 Award (don’t know what this is, and I’m not even sure that I read the initials properly)

31. Dad’s wood block plane (I haven’t found the plane. I did see a small wood block and saved it, just in case).

32. South American pottery vase

31. Miniature brass Catholic church, Peru visit (Not found yet)

30. Conch shell from West end of Molokai

29. WSC Minature Koa canoe paddle (WSC = “Waikiki Surf Club”)

28. WSC Miniature paddles with engraved plate

27. Koa mallet engraved silver (also WSC)

26. Carved letter opener

25. WSC encased medal

24. Coin “cat” bank from home, Long Beach “Kid Days” (a very old cast-iron coin bank in shape of a cat)

23. Silver ash tray from Peru by George Downing (brought back by Downing from early surf trip to Peru)

21. Mercury Club President’s award

20. Desk Pen Set from Rod Welsh 1959 when Honresco (my dad’s company, Honolulu Restaurant Supply Co.) was started

19. Hokulea Award

18. Enclosed President Kennedy 50 cent piece from my mother

17. Gift from Steve Reese, First Day of the rest of your Life. (Steve is his nephew)

16. Brass Social Security Identification

15. Lima Peru award Agusto Weisse

14. Malia Canoe Award

13. Life Member, Long Beach Surf Club

12. Award from LBJC 1938, Salute to the States (I think this is the Long Beach Junior Chamber of Commerce)

11. Picture of my dad 1904 (not found yet)

10. Rattle from Havana Cuba 1931 (collected when he worked on a freighter around South America and up the east coast after graduating from high school)

9. Wire bicycle set from Bonnie (my sister)

8. Diamond Head Trophy (again from the WSC)

7. Silver plated water pitcher from LB home (that’s LB as in Long Beach, CA)

6. Original compass from Nadu K-2 (his boat, originally owned by Duke Kahanamoku).

5. Award “Bananas on tree” from HBGF Club. (I have no idea what club this refers to, and I didn’t find the bananas item anyway.)

3 & 4 Canoe paddles

2. Koa steering paddle

1. Koa canoe paddle

Quite a list.

Late last week, I arrived to visit my dad mid-morning. He’s been in a nursing home in Honolulu since the beginning of the year.

He was asleep, and I gently woke him up.

He was surprised but greeted me by name. So far, so good.

I asked how he was feeling.

He shook his head.

“I’ve been feeling a little punk. Tired.”

I commented that he had been napping, and it launched him into an explanatory tale.

He had, he explained, spent the evening before with “the guy who watches the boat”. He said he had stayed the night, ate breakfast this morning, and then went over to Kuhio Beach. By this time, in his telling, he was tired.

“I wanted to take a nap, but I couldn’t lay down. So I came back here,” he said, looking around his little space next to the window at end of a room with three other men, separated only by moveable privacy curtains.

“It’s so convenient.”

Thus he explained why he had been sleeping when I arrived.

Then he announced there are several places “like this” where he can spend the night, if necessary. All by way of saying “don’t worry about me”.

Then he looked up and asked a question.

“How much does this room cost?” he wondered. “I hope its not $250 a night, like the Royal!”

Actually, I was glad to realize that he thought he was in a hotel.

Yesterday I stopped by again, this time with Meda. It was late afternoon, and again we woke him up.

He was immediately happy to see us, and especially happy that Meda had come along.

In this visit, his mind seemed clear.

We told him that we are preparing to celebrate our 40th anniversary on Saturday.

He looked at us. “Forty years? That’s a long time!”

He thought about time.

“That makes you pretty old,” he said.

We laughed.

Meda joked that if our marriage were a person, she would be having a midlife crisis. We used to say the marriage was ready to go to college, or was getting an advanced degree. Now a midlife crisis. What next?

He spoke next.

“How old am I?” he asked.

Meda answered. “You’re 95, and will be 96 in a few months.”

“Really?” His eyes lit up. “That’s really old! I wonder what I did to live this long?”

We all laughed.

We asked how he has been feeling. He again said that he has trouble walking because his balance is so bad. It’s hard to stand up on his own.

And, he complained, the staff get all excited whenever he tries to get up without assistance.

Suddenly he launched into an incredibly good imitation of one of his Filipina nursing assistants, shouting out in a completely different voice, “Mr. Lind, Mr. Lind, wait, wait, don’t get up!”

He laughed, his eyes bright.

That made it a very good day, as he was aware enough to be able to laugh about his predicament and act out his part in a larger drama.

I read somewhere that dementia or Alzheimer’s can cause your brain to forget the process of balancing that we normally do automatically. Maybe it was something one of is doctors said–“You’re not dizzy, you’ve forgotten how to balance.”

It seemed like the simplest of tasks.

My mother asked me to go up to the bank at Kahala Mall with her because she wanted to add my name to the checking account used to pay household expenses. She also wanted to add my name to her safety deposit box where she keeps an original signed copy of her trust documents.

Just in case. My mom turned 95 in May, and at that age there’s more “just in case” planning to do, if you’re still as sharp as she is.

Bank of Hawaii’s branch at Kahala Mall is literally only a couple of minutes away from my parents’ home. My mother has banked there as long as there’s been a Kalaha branch, and for years before that at other BOH branches, back when Kahala was just a fringe of houses on the perimeter of the farms.

She’s probably banked with this company for 60 years or more, much of that time here in Kahala.

Anyway, I picked her up at the house and drove her up to the mall.

We only had to wait a couple of minutes, literally, before being ushered to a couple of seats in a cubicle on the edge of the main bank lobby. A friendly woman sat behind the desk.

“How can I help you?”

My mother explained and then passed a copy of her latest bank statement across the desk, showing the account number and other info. She also has a bank form which my dad signed in a now illegible scrawl. He’s also named on this joint account.

“No problem,” the bank lady said, her fingers taping a few instructions into her computer. “I’ll just need to see your current identification,” she added, looking first at me.

That made sense. I’m the newcomer getting added to the account. I did into my wallet and get out my drivers license, pass it over. She types the relevant information, asks me to confirm address and date of birth. So far so good.

Then she looks at my mother. “Mrs. Lind? Could I see your ID? When we update an account, we need to get the current information.”

My mother doesn’t hear well, so I initiate the response.

“What kind of identification do you need?”

I explain that my mom is 95 and did not renew her drivers license on her last birthday, back in May. So she does not have a currently valid drivers license.

Bank lady tries again. “How about a State ID?”

Nope. Never had one. Wasn’t required.

“Passport?” Nope. She hasn’t done any international travel in years.

Worry comes over bank lady’s face, just about the time that another bank official stops as she’s going by, recognizes my mother, and calls out, “Good morning, Mrs. Lind.”

It was very surreal.

Visual i.d. made by staff, but that doesn’t help. Obviously, the bank has some kind of rule. Change anything in your account and you had better have some darn good way to prove that you’re you. Even if they know who you are.

Just why a recently expired drivers license with photo can’t be used for identification purposes by the elderly is hard to fathom, especially in a case like this where the person is already known to the business.

One of life’s little mysteries, I guess.

Anyway, bank lady decides to plunge ahead, leaving my mother’s identify in limbo.

“If you can just bring in your father’s ID…” She looks at my disbelieving face, trails off.

I explain. He’s suffering from dementia and alzheimer’s. He’s been in a nursing home since late last year. He has no valid drivers license, it expired on his 95th birthday last December. He can’t drive. He can’t remember that he can’t drive. No,he does not have a valid passport. Why that should be a problem for his local branch bank bothers me.

Bank lady gets on the phone, searching for help elsewhere in the bank. I can hear her whisper, trying to explain to someone downtown why the rules are breaking down. “They’re 95,” she says softly but urgently. No drivers license. No passport. No identity? So it seems.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at my mother’s wallet. She’s got a credit card with her photo, issued by this very bank. Apparently not good enough to verify the identification of a client of more than half a century. She’s got her Medicaid card. No good. She’s got various membership cards. Nothing that seems to fit the bank’s need.

So with things still in limbo, we turn to task two. Put my name on her safety deposit box. Same issues. No ID? No way.

Finally, from one of those downtown folks being consulted, comes an idea. I think bank lady said “e-funds”. What that means, I don’t know. But somehow e-funds information associated with the checking account has somehow smoothed the bureaucratic waters and provided a way out.

The transaction proceeds. She’s not 100% certain that it’s all going to pass muster, but at least she can move it past her desk.

So we sign some final papers for the safety deposit box. The whole struggle with this loss of identity has taken well over an hour. My mother is impatient, ready to leave. The bank releases us just in time. Bank lady smiles. We smile politely.

My parents can’t be the only folks in town who have outlived their various forms of identification papers. It’s not their fault. With people generally living longer, it’s bound to be a growing issue.

In my parents case, we sic the lawyers on the bank, if it comes to that. But what happens to those without family resources to cut through the bureaucracy?

Why not let people get state IDs at the same time they get or renew drivers licenses? Could the state delegate ID powers to the counties? Same photo, same information, two different cards, and a clear answer to the “how do you prove who you are if you don’t drive” issue.

In any case, it’s just one more aggravating aspect of aging.