I work with now and I used to work with Dementia & Alzheimer's seniors. There's a unique challenge to working with all seniors, but add in progressive mental decline with those two diseases and the issues are so much more. One fella who had moved to our community from Wa State

was a gentle giant of a man. He was a former professional hockey player - 6'4, massive hands and shoulders, but with knees that could no longer support his giant body, so he was in a wheelchair despite his protests. Quiet protests, though, unlike others who scream, yell, bite,

fight, and try to escape. By escape I mean the doors are locked from the outside and it takes a door code to enter/exit. The reason is some seniors in Memory Care will wander. They do it for different reasons - one lady believed she had to pick up a sewing machine from a store

another man believed he had a bank appointment, and still another believed whenever he saw me that I was the FBI so he had to get away. And there are others who are "themselves" for an hour or so here and there, and when they are, they want out and they want out "now." So my one

guy, Mr. former hockey player, was one such guy who had about an hour each day where he remembered his former life, and when he did he would just sit and cry. And then it would pass and he would return to being congenial. I began to notice though that at a particular time of day

he would wheel himself to a wall and park his wheelchair right in front of it and just stare at it for an hour or more if left alone. He wouldn't talk, sing, cry, or really even change his expression which was, to me, pleasant, hopeful even. Everyone left him alone during his

"Wall time" as it became known as. The workers were good - they are very good - and a break like "Wall time" was welcomed, as there are never enough workers, etc. One day I decided to sit with him during "Wall time" but I asked him first if it were okay. He invited me to sit and

so I did, for about ten minutes or so. There was no talking. Being curious I asked: "Paul, what do you see? What are you looking at?" Paul was quiet for about five more minutes before finally saying: "The ferry. The five o'clock ferry. My wife takes the five o'clock ferry..

from work & I meet her." I smiled before leaving him to wait for his wife. Later I mentioned the story to his daughter, & she said he had indeed used to pick up his wife who took the ferry from work many years ago before she died. She had died more than twenty years ago.

Waiting for his wife on the ferry was his happy place and where his mind went every day around the same time until he died. And he died around that same time of day about a month after we had our brief and only conversation.