2002-07-31|6:46 p.m.
My step-dad is dying of Alzheimer�s. It is at is final stages now. It is so unexplainably, sad to see a man like he was being reduced to this.
Here is a little about him�
Sid, who is the uncle to the neo-jazz star, Dave Koz , is Jewish and was born in Canada (see nearsighted, I am surrounded by you guys). Way before he was married to my mother, just out of college and still living in Canada and working as a chemical engineer, he met a young woman and they fell madly in love. They couldn�t have children of their own so they adopted a boy and a girl. Shortly after, Sid lost his soul mate in a terrible car crash. He became a widow in his late twenties. Not much longer after that he realized that he needed to marry for the children, to give them a mother. So, he did. As they both got in their later years, she died of cancer. She lessened the loneliness for him, my mom said, but she never could fill the loss of his first wife because no one could. In his mid seventies, he met my mom, in her mid thirties, and they eloped. His son died a year after from a heart attack. This is when I got to know Sid, the insanely brilliant and eccentric man that he was. He labels everything: the car for mileage, tire changes, and spark plug replacement; the refrigerator for light bulb changes and when it was bought; the electric appliances for warranties. It was insane. Everything was documented for optimum money saving. Waste was his enemy. And he could do math like music. Think about it. He was a chemical engineer only a year ago. Now he wets the bed and asks strangers for rides home. And when he falls back into reality, he is angry. He is angry because he knows that he is dying.
Someone at work, a customer, said to me recently, �I don�t care what anyone says. Everyone is scared, angry, and sad when they know that death is approaching.�
I think that maybe she is right.
It seems so far away.