A Kid Kept Kicking My Seat and Throwing Popcorn in My Hair, Then My Husband Finally Did Something About It

At our engagement party, he drank too much and spent part of the evening angrily arguing about politics with nobody in particular.

Afterward, Owen drove home in silence.

Finally he said,

“He wasn’t always this bad.”

I looked at him.

“No?”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel.

“No.”

A pause.

“He used to be worse.”

Four years ago, Owen’s mother died suddenly after a stroke.

For a while, Frank managed on his own.

Then he started forgetting things.

Keys.

Meals.

Appointments.

Eventually, the problems became more serious.

One night he called Owen at three in the morning asking why his wife hadn’t returned from the store.

Another time he left the stove on.

Then he got lost driving to a grocery store he had

visited for thirty years.

A stranger found him sitting in a gas-station parking lot, confused and terrified.

The diagnosis was dementia.

It progressed quickly.

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