My father Wilfried was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the late 1990s. At the time we haven’t been much in contact, so I only heard about his diagnosis around 2003 when we laid down our quarrel.
When I saw him, I noticed the change in his reactions, responses and his look. He had slowed down and looked more tired than I had ever seen him before. Still, some of his actions were still the same. I brought my new boyfriend Michael (now my husband) with me and my father immediately invited him to do our family test: play football with him. Michael passed the test with flying colours.
In 2005 Michael and I moved from Germany to Scotland to start a new life. Following this, I only saw my father once, maybe twice a year on our visits to Germany.
My father accepted our invitation to come with his wife to our wedding in April 2009. Having him with us then was one of the greatest gifts, though it turned out he wasn’t really with us anymore. Most of the time he didn’t know where he was, asked me my name several times the day… But he had the most wonderful time at our wedding dancing wildly like he did when he was younger, laughing and having fun.
In spring 2016 I saw him the last time. By then, he had completely vanished. He hadn’t been able to speak for about one-and-a-half years, he never reacted to anything, he was just lying in his bed sometimes pointing at things only he could see. But then, suddenly, while I was sitting at his bed speaking to my brother, my father looked at me, took my hand, smiled and said my name. A moment later he had fallen back into his delirium.
Wilfried died in spring 2017 at the age of 86, a few weeks before we had planned to visit.
I treasure the moment when he said my name on my last visit. It was an extraordinary, almost magical moment, but I will remember him much more as the man he was when I was a child: A geophysicist, vital, he loved nature, was a passionate aquarelle painter and carpenter in his spare time and a wonderful father to me, my brother and our half-sister.
