Planet Dementia: A Son’s True Story as Told to Me

By Linda Smith

I sank down at the end of my mother’s bed as the painful reality washed over me. She would never again return to this beautiful room with its lovely bedspread, Tiffany lamp, and books to transport her to other worlds of relief. It had been her oasis to briefly retreat from father’s turbulent planet of dementia and hoarding. This space had been my room growing up. As the years rolled on, my father’s illness picked up speed. Mom had found a corner of escape from the chaos by moving into my old room.

Her sudden death silenced the sweet voice that was like a song in my memory. The gentle fragrance of her talc powder remained in this room. I slowly looked around the organized, clean and carefully put together sanctuary, an anomaly in this house. My mother was an orderly person. I can only imagine how my father’s habits must have grated on her spirit. I stared at the portal; her bedroom door. It was the entrance from her world into my father’s planet of chaos and madness; his incomprehensible hoarding. 

I knew it fell to me to sort through years of paranoid stockpiling. My father’s academic mind had crumbled, leaving me no choice but to find a nursing home for the twenty-four-hour protection he desperately needed. I had to work and could not be with him to monitor his erratic behavior. Dad’s care must be sourced out to others who could understand his illness and keep him safe. Now the mountain of debris he left behind was my responsibility to unsnarl. Maybe I could even occasionally laugh over the ludicrous stashes I was sure to discover.

It was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I stepped through the portal; mom’s bedroom door, the entrance into my father’s bizarre, meaningless and even dangerous collections. I can’t say the discoveries were uninteresting because they did fill me with wonder. It began with a bin of match jackets from hundreds of companies collected over decades. I fantasized that I could get an on-line contest going: Guess how many match packages are in this bin! I imagined what a reality show de-hoarding this home would make. I snapped back to reality. Dad’s agonizing landfill was my lonely task – mine alone. Nobody else cared about this mess. I found the tinder box of matches positioned beneath his failing handy man attempts at wiring. I called in an electrician who was slightly horrified.

Some would tell me to just get a dumpster and be done with it, but I felt an obligation to sift through the hoard more carefully. After all, this was the remains of my parents’ lives. Didn’t that deserve some respect? There were treasures to be found in this honeycomb of material. I found the photo of a grandfather in Europe who died before I was even born. My own face stared up at me as I held it in wonder. Another rare photo was of my smiling four-year-old mother on the doorstep of war. One of the greatest treasures I unearthed was my mother’s diaries. I was determined to discover what lay beneath bags, boxes, newspapers, years of teaching supplies and several cartons of expired Tylenol and Beeno; essentials dad salted away for the next war.

My father was haunted by his childhood in war-torn Germany. Something he kept at bay, was now released from its cage by dementia. I found stashes of serious knives he thought he would need to fend off the enemy. His true enemy was the disease that dredged up childhood fears and suffering from another time and place; hunger, soldiers, looting and violence inflicted upon his parents. The lethal time travellers in his mind had breached the barrier and marched into his present to terrorize him once more. I’m sure he thought he was building some kind of protection by stockpiling his home to survive invasion. As his mind failed, the fear grew. Putting this together helped me understand him.

I am the keeper, the one fate assigned to be ‘the sorter’ in this madness. It has fallen to me to tie up loose ends. Accepting my mission, I began to restore this little house where I was raised. I relinquished my apartment and moved in. Mom’s room became the bunk house on a construction site. As the cleared-out rooms took shape and regained their dignity, I began to feel at home once more. Perhaps I needed this trip into the past so I could come to terms with the present.

The nursing home just called to say dad had thrown his television into the hallway while ordering everyone out of his room forever! His struggle with dementia continues while I dedicate myself to mining his planet. Rome wasn’t built in a day and it has taken decades to layer this house with his belongings. It may also take years of diligent effort to disassemble his planet, but it has all been therapy somehow. My peace has returned.