the_bicycle tender square the frame is silver and gold in a way i’ve never seen before; the pedals all shiny metal, not plastic. “it was your uncle jim’s bike,” dad says. he inherited from his older brother after he passed away from emphysema. “it was just sitting in his basement; hadn’t been used for so long that the tires were dry-rotted.” he bought and installed new tires and tubes. started using the bike every morning to pick up his paper at the corner store once the province took away his driver’s license. on his sage test, dad struggled to draw a house or a clock face, and got upset with the process because he’s never been artistic. the specialist said he had no choice but to report the results to the mto, even though my dad’s been driving since he was 10 and worked as a taxi driver for decades. “sometimes i get on the bike, i bring my computer tracker, and i just head out without any direction in mind.” he biked 25 kilometers a few weeks ago. probably explains why he’s lost so much weight recently, why he feels so tiny in my arms when i hug him now. “i think of my brother every time i ride it,” he tells me. i know what he means; uncle o inherited leigh ann’s expensive pro bike when none of her kids wanted it, and he’s been using to keep in shape after his heart-valve transplant. he thinks of his sister each time he rides it too. dad seems to be managing well from what i can tell. he’s engaged in conversation, he makes quips, and he can recall things like he used to, which makes me believe the medication is working. mom says the antidepressant is making him too calm though: i haven’t heard him stress about retaking the driver’s test like he was a couple months ago, and he’s no longer railing against the doctor who took it away. walking past my parent’s bedroom, i notice there’s a frame on dad’s nightstand that wasn’t there before—his firearms license, something i don’t think i’ve ever seen hung up in the house in the twenty years they’ve lived there. and immediately, i know it’s kept to serve as a daily reminder for him that he has some rights left in this country, a symbol that there’s still strength yet in his cognitive faculties. 210904 ... tender square the doctor’s office had to reschedule my dad’s driving test that was originally scheduled for early next week. the instructor wasn’t available anymore, and now they’ve bumped him to october 5th. 9 am. in london. two hours away from where my parents live. mom says he’s not pleased, that he’s been chomping at the bit to take this exam. last time i was at the house, i saw the sheets of paper he’s been practicing the sage questions on, drawing multiple cubes with numbers in them. when he first lost his license i said, “we may need to get accustomed to this being the new normal; there’s a chance you may not get it back.” he got off the phone with me and told my mom that i was being condescending. “i’m not saying that to hurt your feelings,” she said, when she relayed it to me. michael and i think he hasn’t adequately prepared himself for this probability. my dad’s still drinking beer even though he’s not supposed to have any alcohol on the antidepressants. if he’s had more than one the day prior, he struggles with his memory and comprehension the next day. when he found out that the exam was rescheduled, he asked my mom to take him to the beer store while i was on the phone with her. “no, stu. drink an 0.5 from the fridge.” “i don’t want an 0.5.” “here, take this half of my beer,” she said, handing him the can. two weeks ago, she went for lunch with a girlfriend and when they came back to the house my dad was naked in the backyard by the pool. “what are you doing?!” she said. her friend was embarrassed. “what? i’m in my own backyard! no one can see me!” “stu, in the 40 years we’ve been married you’ve never done this. this isn’t like you.” turns out he had two beers while she was gone. 210917 ... tender square i’m afraid i don’t know how to be with my father. this knowledge is especially acute now that he has alzheimer’s. he has always been a distant figure, a star fading fast in a navy sky that i’ve never been able to grasp. maybe i've always intuited that he felt burdened by us. when terri and candi were young girls and living with my grandmother, my father wanted to run away to the west coast and start his life over, leaving his daughters with someone he thought would take better care of them than he could. then he met my mother. years later, when my mother was due at any moment to deliver me to the world, my father left her home alone, without a car, with candi and terri to care for, as he fled to drink all night long, not returning until dawn. the biggest reason i think he stayed with us is because he didn’t want to follow the pattern of being abandoned by his father. so, my dad threw himself into his work as his escape from us. brea and i would pry the cowboy boots from his feet when he came home and shower him with love and giddy stories from our day. at dinner, he was always the first to leave the table, even if the rest of us were still eating and conversing. five women left hungry for his attention. he still has this habit of leaving, though it feels more pronounced now. he will find any task he can to busy himself in our presence and i think it’s because he can’t follow the threads of conversation as he used to, his eyes become vacant as though lost in the terrain of words exchanged. back in june, i told my therapist that i wanted to make more of an effort to talk to my dad, to call him every week to find out how he’s doing while i still can. i have yet to do this. for so much of my life, i’ve talked to my father through my mother. my mother is the mediator, the facilitator whenever we speak by phone. i don’t know how to talk to my dad; i don’t know how to offer comfort when tells me how upset he is that he can’t drive anymore; i don’t know what to say when he denies his diagnosis. how does anyone deal with this? it’s only been since i started writing that i began to ask my dad questions about his life, questions that i always assumed were off limits. but i fear this disease will take all those stories away before i’ve had a chance to get them all down. it happened with both my grandmothers; i was too late to receive them. during times when my father was drunk when i was growing up, i remember him saying he had dreams he never got a chance to chase. what those dreams were i can't ask—i worry they were never meant to contain us. 211010 ... tender_square my father has been on two supervised drives with the mto over the past couple of weeks to determine if he should be given his license back. the first session went fine according to the woman who spoke with my mother after. dad was very coordinated with the vehicle, even if he drove a bit on the slower side. however, he failed the trails b test again, and he’s been practicing it all summer; the test jumbles letters and numbers together and the purpose is to link them in order, like a connect-the-dots—a to 1 and b to 2 and so on. my dad has failed this test multiple times, it was the reason his neurological specialist reported him to the mto in the first place back in june. the thing is, my father drove taxi for 48 years. driving is ingrained into his body despite what is happening with his mind. this is why he feels so aggrieved by this outcome. after the first driving test, my father was frustrated. he didn’t like that the instructor didn’t provide him with a destination to drive to, she was just giving random directions like “turn left on this next street,” so he felt anxious the whole time. “who gets into a car and drives without a destination?” he complained to my mother. she thought it was a fair point, and so she brought it up to the next instructor: “give him a destination, like, head to the costco but take ec row to get there.” the instructor agreed but wouldn’t let my mom ride along in the car; she set up my dad’s phone to record the session so she could listen to it after. turns out my father was chatting away with the instructor the whole time; he was far more relaxed in the car the second time around. “this is great news,” i said. “talking and driving takes an incredible amount of cognitive ability.” mom agreed, but the mto wants my dad to do a third test before they approve him. my parent’s car insurance is due to renew at the beginning of november, but the company got word that my dad’s license was taken away because of dementia, so it’s causing a couple of problems. first, if my dad’s license is not reinstated before november, the current insurance carrier may not wish to have him on the policy after, or they may charge more. a new insurance company is unlikely to take him on, or they may charge more for the added risk as well. second, we don’t know if these driving tests have to be revisited in the future and if so, how soon. there is worry that we’re only prolonging the inevitable. once dementia patients stop driving, studies have found that there is steep cognitive decline; we’re trying to prevent this from happening if we can. mom said she saw an episode of “60 minutes” recently about tony bennett, who is 96 and has dementia. yes, he’s a lot older than my father, but bennett’s dementia is worse—he cannot remember who is wife is anymore. but whenever music is played for him, everything floods back to his memory. bennett did a recent concert in honor of his birthday and it was like his catalogue never left him; he announced lady gaga on stage when she joined him and she told the reporter that bennett has not said her name for two years. “i think your father is the tony bennett of taxi driving,” my mom said. 211017 ... tender_square wouldn't you know, my father just passed his driving test and his license has been reinstated. i guess he really is the tony bennett of automobiling. 211023 what's it to you? 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