Things that shouldn't mix:

Christmas and Alzheimer's.

He didn't know who I was.

I went to visit him in the TV room at my mom's house Christmas afternoon. He lay on the couch, the squeaking and commentating and clapping sounds of an NBA game playing on the television. His long skinny feet were crossed on the armrest, and his arms were folded over his chest. He would look at me, but not really; it was more of a glance, but repeated, like a nervous bird on a wire watching an unfamiliar cat. I said, "Hi Dad."

Silence.

I sat and teased him for a while. Tried to talk basketball and Koby Bryant and all that. After five minutes, when he finally realized who I was, he tried to get up, arms reaching out as if for a life line that remained out of his grasp. I leaned over to hug him, and he grabbed onto me and held me there. Finally, he knew he should know me. He might of even thought I was Her, the youngest one, the one who broke her arm in fourth grade.

Later on, at dinner, he said how he didn't know what was going on. He knew where his chair was, because it was the one he inhabited for 35 years, but, he didn't know why he was sitting there on that day. Who all those noisy people were. So he ate his food quickly and took up his post on the couch.

My kind brother-in-law took my picture with him. I don't want to look at the picture, because I know I was fighting the tears that would explode later in the car.

As my mom drove him "home" that night, he said, "Wow. The price of gas has come down." He can't say our names or understand Christmas, but he can understand gas prices.

Yet another reason Alzheimer's sucks.