Let’s meet Al…..

Last time I slightly introduced you to Al, I didn’t go into detail over how I met Al or rather how Al met me. From the last blog, you will recall that Al had decided to come out on a group cycle ride with me and that was the first time I had met him. Well, over time I have found out that was not strictly true. Leaping forward to much later counselling, more of this later, it became clearer that we had met before.

So when did we meet, Al and me? Simple answer, if not a boring one, is….no one can be sure but one thing that is clear, it was not recent. One way of describing how Al was always there is perhaps like one of those old black and white movies. You know the ones, an old spy movie where the main character is walking down a dark street with a feeling that he is being followed, only when he turns around there is no one there because the follower jumps into a doorway. This goes on and on, perhaps with dramatic music until…….

The day Al comes more prominent in my mind, becoming a voice that I could not ignore any more was a day of happiness. I have perhaps to say, and if any one is reading this and lives with the same feelings I apologise, Al’s voice is not like the “voice of the Mysterons” (target audience reference) all demonic and gravelly. It’s a calm voice, a level voice, but one that is convincing so much so that it’s you. But it can’t be because there is no way I would feel like this or indeed do what I am being advised to do by Al. So when did Al come in, to go back to the first question. We have tracked it down to my 50th birthday, a quite important date you would think. I opened my birthday card from my mum, nothing unusual, but the words were which are as follows:-

“ who would have thought 50 years ago I did not bond with you”.

As usual I laughed it off at the time, showed my brother whose reaction was “for f**ks sake”. Fair enough but at the time neither of us thought that this was the start of my mother living with dementia. This has stayed with me now for six years, constantly reminded of it by Al who says illness is no excuse. So that was the start of it, the birthday card was a trigger, the trigger of a starting gun that released Al from his dark doorway in that moody street.

Next time we shall see how much Al progressed and learned to ride a bike….

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