There are two words I really don’t like.
One of them is ‘merge.’
The sign on the highway orders drivers to merge.
It sounds like a command, a rude command at that. Merge!
Now, what if I can’t merge. The cars are too jammed together. Then, I need someone to YIELD. I like that word.
The other word I don’t like is dementia. I have Lewy body dementia or (LBD). Sometimes it’s called Dementia with Lewy bodies. Sometimes, people take the dementia out altogether and say Lewy body disease. But dementia is the most used and most accepted description. It is a word that broadly describes damage to the brain that affects cognition, memory, speech, etc. That brain damage can be caused by Lewy bodies (proteins) or Alzheimer’s or other brain diseases. Although we know the process of this brain damage, in cases like Lewy, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we don’t know the cause of these diseases. And there is no cure.
So why don’t I like the word dementia? Well for one, it is a root word of demented, which sounds menacing.
The word itself, demented, sounds too much like ‘demon.’ The dictionary says demon is a bad spirit or ‘one who acts as a tormentor in hell.”
The dictionary says demented means “driven to behave irrationally due to anger, distress, or excitement.”
Now that’s a little better than being in hell. But if I’m driven to irrational behavior it’s because I am ‘driven’ to it.
Because of my LBD, I have quit driving and am now being driven by other people: my wife, my daughter, my colleagues, friends, neighbors, church folk, Uber drivers. Just about anybody I can flag down.
I must admit it has been an interesting life-changing adventure. No longer in the driver’s seat, I’m on the passenger side.
The general consensus is that I’m one of the worst backseat (or passenger side), drivers in the world.
It does allow me time to get work done via phone or laptop while someone else is driving. If I’m not gripping the seat with my white-knuckled hands
Or stomping the floor like I may find a brake on the passenger side.
I have so far resisted the urge to discuss the correct method to merge with my drivers.