"My father died nine months ago and last night he drove me home in a taxi. We knew something was wrong when my father stopped taking his insulin and started leaving his flat at night without his shoes because there were people in the plants and the floor was made of muddy water. After several tests, he was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which causes hallucinations and a rapid decline in cognition."
"In the first weeks in the home, he would often tell the nurses the story of how he met my mother. He was a 21-year-old Tunisian store detective, using his impeccable eyesight to catch shoplifters in a mall in Lausanne, Switzerland. She was an 18-year-old Swedish student secretary who was in the country to learn French. They met at a pub. He quoted Baudelaire. She went back to Sweden. Years of letters. A reunion in Stockholm."
"After their first kiss, Dad asked Mom what her family name, Bergman, meant in Swedish. Mountain man, she said. He couldn't believe it. His family name, Khemiri, also meant mountain man but in Arabic. Cue strings. Cue destiny. Cue love for ever, for ever ever, forever ever? (Andre 3000 voice). Their names connected them in a world that seemed to claim their love was impossible, because they didn't share class, background, religion, skin colour and a mother tongue."
Nine months after his death a son experienced a final taxi ride with his father, who had stopped managing diabetes and began leaving home barefoot at night, seeing people in plants and muddy floors. Medical testing diagnosed Lewy body dementia, causing hallucinations and rapid cognitive decline. The father moved to a nursing home where he received medication, therapy and care and often recounted meeting the son's mother in Lausanne: a Tunisian store detective and a Swedish secretary who connected over similar 'mountain man' surnames despite ethnic and class differences. The son hoped for reconciliation and an apology that never came.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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