On Dec. 27, 2024, at 5:43 a.m., the Chow family lost their beloved mother, Melissa, when she was hit by a car on the Great Highway. Melissa lived with frontotemporal dementia, the family said, a cruel condition that affects behavior, judgment, and memory.
“Despite the precautions we took to keep her safe, she managed to wander from home that day. We searched frantically and called the police, but by the time we learned what had happened, it was too late. She was struck by a car and did not survive,” Virginia Chow wrote on a GoFundMe page that she organized to cover funeral expenses, and to honor Melissa’s memory by raising awareness about this devastating disease.
“The events of that day play over and over in our minds, the frantic search, the gut-wrenching call from the police, and arriving at the hospital only to hear the doctor deliver the worst news of our lives. Seeing her lifeless body is an image we will never forget. It all happened so fast, leaving us grieving deeply and struggling to process this unimaginable loss,” Virginia wrote. “This is a pain we wouldn’t wish on anyone, and we ask for compassion from our community as we navigate this tragedy. When discussing this incident, we hope people will remember that grief is complicated, and families like ours are doing the best we can in impossible circumstances.”
The GoFundMe statement was made on Dec. 29, two days after Melissa died, but from the moment her death hit the news, bicycle and pedestrian activists seized on it to justify the removal of cars on the Great Highway, despite the fact that Proposition K, which passed in the November election, will do just that. Lucas Lux, an attorney for Google and one of the biggest champions of Proposition K, gave perhaps the most insensitive statement to a blog called Underscore: “Getting to the beach should not be a life or death matter.” Lux, who is now president of Friends of Ocean Beach Park (which will advocate for the so-far imaginary project) is surely smart enough to know that people don’t go to the beach at 5:43 a.m., something that was made clear from the initial report. Still, other Proposition. K proponents like Robin Pam, founder of KidSafeSF, jumped on the idea that a woman died trying to “get to the beach,” and they stuck with it despite learning directly from a first responder on the scene that the accident occurred “pre-dawn in dark, foggy, rainy conditions.”
One of the most repugnant displays came from Adam Egelman, a Proposition K cohort of Lux and Pam who runs the “tactical urbanism” group SafeStreetRebel. “We’re at Great Highway & Ulloa where a driver killed a 68-year-old pedestrian on Friday. Had this happened 2 months later it’d be a park and she’d be fine. There were no deaths from May 2020–Aug 2021 when it was car-free. Car-free & car-light spaces make cities safe for all,” he wrote on X. Egelman, who gained national notoriety for sabotaging San Francisco’s self-driving vehicles, once told BikePortland.org that when it comes to ridding the roads of cars, “bullying works” and “using your privilege is important” (after X users discovered the article, a suddenly spineless Egelman asked BikePortland to make him anonymous).
To say this display of selfish, tactless activism disgusted me is an understatement, but after reading Virginia Chow’s words, I felt compelled to tell my own story of taking care of a parent with dementia who also slipped out of the house on a rainy San Francisco morning.
When the child becomes the parent
My father would have celebrated his 92nd birthday on Jan. 23. I think of him every day, but especially on that day because it reminds me of what a childlike love he had for birthdays. Whereas most people want to forget birthdays as they age, my father wanted all the bells and whistles — singing at the restaurant, a big cake, gifts — and he would grin that charming grin of his that never faded even as dementia set in.
When we moved him to San Francisco so I could take care of him, I realized that caring for a parent with dementia was much more difficult than I could have imagined. The roles had reversed: He had become the child, and I had become the parent. My father was an active man throughout his life — he traveled with the circus, joined the Navy, nearly made the Boston Red Sox, and coached high school sports. He also loved adventure, something that, unfortunately, was the source of much tension between us those last few months.
The doctors at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Hospital had made it clear to him that he wasn’t able to get on buses and go wherever he pleased the way he had when he was younger; that San Francisco was a dangerous city and he could get lost, hurt, or worse. They also made it clear to me that I needed to make sure that didn’t happen, and if it did, they would recommend I put him in a home. That was my father’s greatest fear. When Kickie, his longtime girlfriend, could no longer care for him with his worsening dementia, my father begged me not to put him in a home, and I promised him I wouldn’t, a promise I am glad I kept despite the difficulty involved.
When my dad — lovingly referred to as “Teach” by his friends for his years as a public-school teacher — moved in with me and my pit bull, Jasmine Blue, the man I grew up with no longer existed. Gone was the chilly bravado, replaced with a warmth I had never seen before. Part of that warmth came from the fact he adored Jasmine, and she adored him. Every night Jazzy would climb up on his bed and gently lick his shaking hands before curling up beside him. The three of us would watch movies together, Jazzy growling and barking every time an animal came onscreen. He called her his “grand dog,” and he loved her gentle nature, clownish personality, and beautiful light blue eyes that looked eerily similar to his. Kickie had been afraid that she might knock over my now-frail father because she was so big, but that never happened. Jazzy seemed well aware of my father’s frailty, even learning to wait at the top and bottom of the stairs until he made it all the way and gave her the O.K. to join him.
One stormy January morning, a week from my father’s 76th birthday, I heard Jazzy barking as I prepared breakfast upstairs. She had been watching A Christmas Carol with my father, the 1951 version with Alastair Sims, his favorite film, and one that I kept recorded so he could watch it all year. Jazzy rarely barked, so I immediately knew something was wrong. I dashed downstairs, and she led me to the back door of my father’s garden bedroom — it was wide open, and there was no sign of my father.
For several hours I called all of his favorite places and finally found him at Fishermen’s Grotto on the wharf. Owner Mike Geraldi, a longtime family friend, said “Teach” had been there all afternoon. Even though he had dementia, my father could still be cunning — he told Mike that I knew he was there and then promptly tried to convince all of the waiters to bring him a carafe of wine or a beer. Everyone at the Grotto knew that my father was no longer allowed to drink, so they brought him nonalcoholic beers instead. My father sat by the window, looking out at the stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, talking about the good old days and how much he missed Mike’s father, Nino, who had died a number of years ago. That’s one of the most baffling things about dementia — you can remember things that happened decades ago, but not things that happened the day before.
When my dad moved in with me and my pit bull, Jasmine Blue, the man I grew up with no longer existed.
Mike told me that he would call a cab and make sure my dad got home. Several minutes later, he called back to say that when he went to get my father, he was gone. Another two hours passed as I frantically called the other places he loved — the Buena Vista, the House of Prime Rib, Cobb’s Comedy Club, the Cliff House. He was nowhere to be found. I was just about to start calling hospitals when I heard the doorbell ring. It was a police officer.
As I stepped out into the rainy night, I could see the squad car in my driveway and, in the backseat, my father wearing a San Francisco Police Department hat and grinning from ear to ear. The officer informed me that an alert Muni driver had summoned him and his partner after realizing my father was lost. He had managed to get all the way to Haight Street on the 7-Haight/Noriega bus, down the hill from where we lived on Buena Vista Avenue, but he confessed to the officers that he didn’t know where he was. One of them noticed a pair of dog tags around my father’s neck. I had his name and address inscribed on one of the tags and my name and cell phone number on the other. My father loved wearing the dog tags because it reminded him of his Navy days. The officers didn’t see the second tag, but the first one had his address, so they drove him home.
Once inside the house, I helped my father out of his wet clothes and into his pajamas. “I had a good time today,” he said casually. “I had fun with those guys.”
“What guys?” I asked.
“The guys who brought me home,” he said, smiling. “It was fun riding in their car.”
All of the anger and worry of the day came to the surface, and I began to seethe. “Fun? You thought today was fun? It wasn’t fun for me! The doctors at the V.A. told you that if you wandered off you would have to go into a home!”
Jazzy, who was waiting for their nightly ritual, slinked off the bed and hid behind one side of it, her tail tucked firmly between her legs. “I’m not mad at you, Jazzy,” I said, trying to calm my voice. “I’m mad at your grandfather.”
As I helped my father into bed, I noticed he was crying; then he started to sob. “Please don’t put me in a home!” he begged. I was so angry that I didn’t say a word. Jazzy tentatively came from her hiding place and got onto the bed with my father. She crawled on her belly toward him and began gingerly licking the tears from his face. “That tickles, Jazzy,” my father said, laughing. Her tail went thump-thump-thump on the mattress. The more he laughed the more she licked and the faster her tail went, then I started to laugh, too. As Jazzy laid her head on my father’s chest and took a deep sigh, he put his arm around her, and I put my arm around him.
“Please Daddy, promise me you won’t do that again,” I said, touching his shaking hands.
“I promise,” he replied.
I helped him take his medicine, and I plumped his pillows until he was comfortable. “What do you want to watch?” I asked, grabbing the remote and settling into the rocking chair beside his bed.
“A Christmas Carol,” he answered. “The one with Alastair Sims. It’s the only good one, you know.”
“I know,” I replied. I put the movie on and glanced over at my father. “Do you want your tea?” I asked, but he had already fallen asleep, his arm still around Jazzy as they snored in unison. I shut off the TV and, before going upstairs, leaned over to kiss both of them on the forehead. “Goodnight you two,” I whispered, as Jazzy’s tail went thump-thump-thump.
