wading tender_square he said he was trying to honour her recent dream, that coming home for her could mean multitudes: forever, for now, for a period. she told him she wasn’t in search of something unsaid, only that she wanted to be there while her dad knew who she was, and while he knew who he was. her husband shared an anecdote from his therapist about another client whose father also had alzheimer’s: when the father entered his toughest phase of deterioration, the daughter dreamt of him each night. he was in a navaho hut quilt-weaving, and the pattern grew with passing days. before the daughter learned her father had died, she saw him complete the quilt as she slept, and she knew it was the end of his journey. the wife sobbed into her chewed-up hands; of course this was coming. she needed a ritual with her father, an act to bring them closer in the erosion of memory. her sisters would not enact this; their father was a periphery figure in their sagas, his diagnosis a danger they couldn’t fully face. where would they be when it worsened? if they couldn’t stand in the painful tide as it swelled now, they never would. and she was prepared to wade out as far as grief would take her. 220929 what's it to you? who go blather from