Usually called the doctor. Or the caretaker.

I watched 50 First Dates for the first time a few years after it came out. Ranj hated Adam Sandler movies. We never saw them in theatres.

It came out after Ranj's stroke, and I didn't watch it until after it had become clear--no matter how much I was in denial--that his brain damage was profound and irreversible, and that it was getting worse over time. By 2006 or 2007 when I watched the movie for the first time, he'd started becoming irrational and short-tempered. He was subject to idées fixes that were mostly harmless and slightly annoying but sometimes actually harmful, mostly to him. Sometimes to me.

I had to tell him stuff over and over again. We had the same conversations a lot. As the years wore on, he was always in pain. He got angry a lot, was frustrated a lot, got...disturbingly sad...a lot. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could ever do.

And 50 First Dates reminds me of all that.

I felt, after his stroke, like people blamed me for not loving him enough to manage to fix him. Maybe some of them did--I think I'm pretty sure some of them did. I know I blamed myself for not being able to fix him, or at least to manage his illness better. Make it less scary for him. Make it less scary for me.

I have so many regrets.

But I don't know what I could do differently even if I had the chance.