“The name escapes me at the moment,” said Father Benedict Groeschel on his Sunday evening program. “Don’t get old.”

Having the name of a person or place escape you is not peculiar to old folks, but it does seem to happen more often the older we get.  Now, Father Groeschel is ten years younger than I am and his memory is astonishingly good, one might even say miraculously good, considering his terrible accident and lengthy coma just a few years ago.  But, as with Father Groeschel, more and more often in my peer group I notice that we grope for a word that just doesn’t appear at the tip of the tongue when we want it.   With myself, it most often seems to be a person’s name.  I can remember the person’s occupation, where s/he lives, the nationality of the name, how many syllables it has, sometimes the letter it begins with – if you say it, I’ll recognize it right off.  Like Father Groeschel, I just murmur, “It will come to me later.”  We oldsters are patient with each other and hope that while this incapacity is annoying it is par for the course.  We add, half-joking, that we’re “Up to Z in Alzheimer’s!” Read the rest of this entry »