It sucks getting older.

Jdhteach and I moved into our neighborhood about 4 years ago. We love the neighborhood and the neighbors. Everybody (except one couple - look up the blog entry about them) is nice and looks out for each other. The elderly couple that lives on one side of us is especially nice. The older gentleman recently "retired" again and we see him and his wife quite frequently. They have a pseudo grandson (it's a long story) that practically lives there during the summers and visits almost every weekend during the school year. He's a year older than Jack, but they get along swimmingly and play alot. Whenever Jack goes over to the neighbor's house to play, Caroline will go with him. She loves to visit with the couple, especially the woman. They will bake together (which they both love). Most of the neighbor's grandchildren are either grown, or at the age where school events and friends override visiting the grandparents. So when Jack and Caroline go over there, the couple has a ball.

I remember when I was growing up that there was a couple who lived adjacent to our house that were similar to the current couple. They were older, their kids had grown and moved to different states, and they didn't get to see their grandchildren much. Our neighborhood had lots of children, so they'd often sit outside in the evenings and watch us all play. I remember one year we had a horrible wind storm and a lot of the trees and/or branches were down. Everybody chipped in to help each other, including the couple. The woman made these really awesome lemon drop cookies and was easy to talk to. It was sad when they passed away, the new person didn't get out as much.

Well recently I found out from talking with one of their sons (he's over there all of the time helping out) that the older gentleman was in the early stages of Alzheimer's (the older woman says she was told it was Dementia). The older man was showing signs of anger and frustration and was very forgetful. They were keeping an eye on him, and I said we'd do the same. A couple of days ago, I was out working in my yard when an ambulance pulled up in front of their house. I found out, as they were wheeling him to the ambulance, that he'd fallen and hit his head. He argued with his wife and son about going to the hospital but then started to not make sense, so the wife called 911 (I found out later from the wife, that he'd accused me of calling 911 and was angry about it, but the wife quickly put him in his place).

So, today I'm at the grocery store getting items for my party this afternoon and my cell phone rings. It's Jason and he says that somethings weird. I thought it was something like the water was dripping or the dogs were acting weird, but it wasn't. He said the older gentleman was at our front door saying that he was waiting for his friend. He handed Jason the garage door opener and said that where he was going he wasn't going to need it. Well, that freaked Jason out. Then the man said that he was waiting in his car out in front of our house and that his son was in his house keeping his wife busy because she didn't need to know. "What should I do," Jason asked. I suggested that he go next door and find out if the story's right, but Jason said that he was waiting out front and would see him if he went next door. "Well, you have the garage door opener. Go through the garage, but announce yourself when you go through the back. If no one's there call the police and tell them what's going on and that's it's weird and you're concerned. I mean the man is suffering from dementia AND he just got out of the hospital due to hitting his head." So Jason went next door and called me right back.

Apparently, the son and wife knew nothing of this. They didn't even know he was out of the house or that he'd found the keys to the car. By the time they got outside, the friend had shown up but when the gentleman didn't make sense about what he was wanting to do, the friend stalled until he could think of someway to get out of it. But by then the wife and son were at the car. The older gentleman was waiting outside of our house because he didn't want to be in front of his house and risk his wife and son seeing him.

Jason and I feel so badly. The man is really nice and it's so sad. The kids know that he was in the hospital for hitting his head, and Jason said that they were making up their own story as to what happened this morning.

But man, it sucks getting older.