Identity Theft

It started with the tomatoes. My late father had for years grown Better Boys along the south side of the bungalow, and when I took over the house, I resumed the practice. I thought that this would be pleasing news to my mother, the Grammy, when I visited her at the aptly named Queen Anne Nursing Home.

"What do you mean?" she responded. "I grew those tomatoes. Your father had nothing to do with it."

This was certainly not the first time that her slowly advancing dementia had resulted in a somewhat addled recollection of the past, so I let it go. I didn't know it was the beginning of my almost reclusive mother's campaign to usurp the gregarious personality of her deceased husband.

On the next visit, she laid claim to the neighbors. My father had been an early riser, and was always puttering in the front yard, greeting every passer-by. He eventually got to know dozens of neighbors who strolled past, often with their dogs. The Grammy typically didn't rise until 11 AM.

"You know," she told me, "Your father was shy. If it weren't for me, he'd have stayed in the house and hid from everybody."

Two visits later, she was back on the subject.

My father had been a bit of a showman. Back in the day, he'd invented a dance called "the open door twist", a maneuver reprised by my brother John and me at our niece Susan's wedding reception. He wasn't averse to singing his theme song, "Ragtime Cowboy Joe," or reciting "The Cremation of Sam McGee" to any willing, or even unwilling, listener. Whenever he heard a good joke, he wrote it down and put it in his wallet for use at the next social event.

However, to hear my mother tell it, he'd been practically a hermit. "Whenever we went anywhere," she now recalls, "I had do all the talking. We wouldn't have had any friends at all if it had been up to Joe."

I have no idea how long her confused role-reversal will continue. I am tempted to contradict her and tell her the truth, that she is misapplying Dad's social behavior to herself, but to do so would be pointless. Besides, it's not what Dad would have done. He'd have nodded, smiled, and said, "That's right, Ann. I'd be lost without you."