I saw him today, my father, standing in what used to be his pride and joy – the vegetable patch. It’s overgrown now, just a riot of weeds and some stubborn calendula that always came back. He was just… staring. Not at the plants, not at the house, but at his own hands, then at the tangled green at his feet, like he was trying to solve a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. He asked me, quiet as a mouse, "What is this place?" And the words just twisted something up inside me. It's not the first time, of course. We've had weeks of it – the repeated questions, the vacant stares at familiar objects. It's a slow erosion, a kind of cognitive unraveling, the neurologists call it. I just call it watching the tide go out, taking everything with it. He built that fence himself, board by painstaking board, after his shift at the plant. Double shifts sometimes, to make ends meet, to put food on our table, good food from that very garden. He knew every turn of the soil, every plant by name, every beetle that dared to chew a leaf. He could tell you the exact moment a tomato was ripe, just by the scent of it. Now it’s just… green stuff. He sees a stranger’s patch. I stood there, watching him, my own hands suddenly feeling old and useless. My mother would have known what to do, how to talk him down from that quiet confusion. But she’s been gone twenty years, and it's just me now, standing witness to the disappearing act. I know what’s coming. The doctor explained it all, very clinically, very matter-of-fact. The hippocampus is a tricky thing. It'll be my name next. My face will become another unfamiliar landscape. I catch myself sometimes, looking at him, just trying to burn his face into my memory before it's too late. Not the vacant stare, not the confusion, but the way his eyes used to crinkle when he laughed, the set of his jaw when he was concentrating. I just want to remember *him*. Before he becomes someone I used to know, even to himself. Before the garden, and then me, simply cease to exist in his world. It’s a bitter truth, knowing a final goodbye is approaching, but it won't be a dramatic exit, just a slow fading into static. And there’s not a damn thing I can do but watch it happen.