Gone Daddy Gone

This morning my dad went into a nursing home.

Lately I've been going back, in my mind, to the child I was, terrorized and belittled by her father, and I think: someday he's going to have dementia. He's going to forget who I am, who my sisters are, and everything that he's raging about right now. He won't be able to put slippers on his own feet without assistance. He won't remember how to go to the bathroom. He will fade slowly away.

And I'm not sure whether this knowledge would have made my childhood better or worse.