What Day is Today?

Recently, I forgot what day it was. No, I don’t mean the day of the month. I actually forgot that it was Sunday. I thought it was Saturday—again. So I decided to let my son, Jay, sleep in a bit, being as we had no plans for the day. You would think something would kick in and say, “Didn’t we do Saturday yesterday?” But no, it didn’t. Not until I went to Jay’s room when he woke up and saw all the signs that he was planning on going to church. He even had on his Sunday socks. (Yes, he truly does have Sunday socks.)

I told him that church was “tomorrow,” not today. This was Saturday, not Sunday. He looked at me like I had lost my senses, and indeed I had but just didn’t know it. But something didn’t feel right so I looked on my phone. Oh my gosh! It really was Sunday!

I glanced at the time. We had 40 minutes to get ready—both of us, and Jay hadn’t even had breakfast. I quickly went into overdrive and we actually made it to church on time, but my thoughts troubled me.

What if this was one of those things that the doctor would say, “Well, Louise, not knowing what day it is can definitely be a sign of dementia.” I had already told him about losing my cordless home phone then finding it in my makeup drawer. Should I tell him about forgetting words? How I would be talking to a friend and suddenly forget the word I needed and she would supply it. I did the same for her. We thought it was normal for our age, but now I questioned.

And should I tell my oldest son? Would he want to have a conversation about a place for me to spend my last days in the throes of dementia? Thankfully, he did not. He thought the incident was funny and felt “stress” was the culprit. But he did gift me with an Amazon Alexa, saying, “Mom, you can ask her anything—even what day it is.”