I sometimes think about his soul. Not some poetic thing, but as close as one could get to a scientific description. I think whatever it is must be the thing dementia takes away. What remains is this vessel that is my father, that looks like him and smells like him, but is completely empty. He can’t interact with his surroundings anymore. He is digging and digging and digging through the mines of himself to find a fragment of meaning, and I convince myself that so long as this is happening, he still has his soul, but what will it mean when the mine is exhausted?
