Dear Dad – a eulogy to my father

You were always one of my biggest cheerleaders. You encouraged my curiosity and sense of adventure from the very beginning. From our paddling adventures, to biking in the Pacific Northwest, to being out on the water, it isn’t surprising that I ended up as outdoorsy as I did. I inherited your love of diving, cycling, and exploring. And a voyage you and mom took before I was even born, formed the inspiration to change my life and set out on the road.

It’s been 10 months since he left. Ten long and difficult months. And the four years before that, I watched him slowly slip away. It has been hard to talk about losing a parent when so many other people have had such a rough 2020 and 2021, but here we are.

My dad was always an intellectual and intelligent man, so it was so unfair that a disease that robbed him of those qualities is what did him in. My dad’s life work as a medical doctor prepared him well to understand what he would experience as his disease progressed. He had Lewy body dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s – but one that is so often misdiagnosed. In fact, it’s only truly possible to diagnose after death.

He knew of the difficult journey ahead – that slowly the things that had been so special to him, would become so difficult. Dad lived an active life. His passions included cycling, scuba diving, working on the yard and house, and traveling. He also loved being a doctor – it would have been near impossible for him to ever fully retire if the disease hadn’t made that choice for him.

Lewy body dementia slowly impairs cognitive function and patients will increasingly have trouble with movement, tremors, hallucinations, difficulty sleeping, and memory. The average life expectancy is 4-5 years after identification. And with this diagnosis, everything he and my stepmom, Anna, had planned and worked toward came crashing down.

My dad had always been a traveler. Many years before I was born, he and my mom, his first wife, lived in Scotland and India. They traveled the world in the 1970s, at a time way before maps.me, SIM cards, and Instagram. My time in India was challenging enough, but I can hardly imagine what it was like way back then. They had traveled to both locations as he worked his way through medical school and residency programs. Later in life he would fall in love with an Italian woman and fly often across the Atlantic just for a visit while they both juggled busy lives. After he and Anna were married, they road tripped the Pacific Northwest, cruised to Alaska and the Caribbean, dived Belize, and visited so many more locales.

When I was planning my great escape from my old life, I made a personal commitment that I would be out on the road at least as long as my parents were. Their experience overseas, I felt, had greatly influenced their lives and subsequently how they raised me to see the good in everyone. I wanted what they had. I wanted to be exposed to other cultures, to be moved and changed by the world.

On our last trip together, just the two of us, he had come to visit me in Thailand and we spent three weeks exploring the country. We started in Koh Tao, where I was working in the scuba diving industry before visiting Chiang Mai and Bangkok. I took him diving, the last time he ever went, and we ate nasty deep fried bugs at the night market in Chiang Mai (it was his idea, blech). It was on that trip that I first noticed something was up. He had balance issues and fatigue, but we both chalked it up to the long flights and poor state of many sidewalks in Thailand. That said, it was a wonderful time together filled with long talks about life, our shared interests, and me showing off a country I was falling in love with.

In the summer of 2019, we were fortunate to get one more big family trip in before his mobility issues became too difficult to manage. My little sister Alessandra was set to study abroad in Sydney for the summer, so we timed a trip with her, Dad, Anna, and my other sister Julia. While there were challenges, it was a wonderful time filled with smiles, love, and adventures. Dad loved Australia. And by the end of the trip, he and Anna daydreamed about retiring there or even never leaving, both knowing that it would forever stay a dream.

That summer, Dad and Anna asked that I move back from Thailand to be closer to home. I was too far away if something bad were to happen or if Anna needed assistance in his care. So I made plans to return to the US for a few months before looking for tourism work in the Caribbean. I got home just in time for his birthday a couple of days before Christmas. At the start of the new year, I spent January and February at home, adjusting to the new normal of taking care of my father. In March, as I was applying to jobs in the region, Covid lockdowns exploded across the world. At that point, it seemed I would be in Florida at least through the summer. I had no idea then that Covid would still be raging or that Dad would be gone before his next birthday.

I am grateful now that I was able to be home for so much of the past year even with how challenging it was watching Dad’s health deteriorate. It was the first time my two younger sisters and I had ever lived under the same roof. It was the first time we regularly shared meals together beyond a short vacation. And it was the first time we had to care for one of our parents. I believe there is an inflection point in most people’s lives, where they go from being the child to the caregiver – whether for their own children or for their parents. You grow up a lot in that process.

Thank you Dad for everything you did for me to give me a safe, stimulating, and loving upbringing. You encouraged and inspired me and made me a better man. I love you and will miss you always – I know that I bring you with me, wherever I go.

Michael Alan Brown, 1950 – 2020

Learn more at the Lewy Body Dementia Association.