A few days ago, I was waiting for a friend at a convenience store in my apartment complex. An elderly man walked in and suddenly said,

“Where is building 109?”

At first, I had to ask him to repeat himself several times because his pronunciation was hard to make out. I soon realized that he meant building 109 in the apartment complex, so I opened the map app and showed him where it was. But after a while he fell silent, then asked again, “Where is building 109?” I wondered whether I should be more specific, and then he added one more thing.

“Building 109 is my house, but I can’t remember where it is.”

My heart sank. My friend still hadn’t arrived, so I told him I would take him there myself. Unlike my own long padded coat, the old man was wearing a hiking jacket that did not look very thick.

“I was lost for an hour.”

It was minus five degrees Celsius. Even I, wrapped up in a thick long padded coat, had been freezing and had ducked into the convenience store to warm up. The old man held a walking stick in one hand, and he looked unsteady.

I asked if he had family at home because I wanted to reach out to them.

“I had a wife, but she died last year, and now I live alone.”

Then he went on to say something else, and then added in a bitter tone.

“Building 109 is my house, but I don’t remember, my brain must be really weird.”

As we headed to the old man’s house, we chatted about various things. He told me he was 88 years old, and that he moved into this apartment on January 13, 2017. He laughed quietly when I told him that he must have a really good memory because he remembered the exact date.

When I asked about his children, he told me they lived in Bundang. Then he said that the other day they had come by around lunchtime, eaten with him, and asked, “Are you okay?” before saying, “You seem strange.”

We arrived at building 109. The old man thanked me and shook my hand over and over again, and I offered to watch him go in, just in case he couldn’t remember what room he was in, but he turned me away, saying it was fine. I advised him that next time if he was confused again, he should look for the management office at the entrance of the apartment building and turned to leave.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

When everyone else in the world begins to forget me, the one who remembers me to the very end is no one but myself. I can barely imagine how bleak and frightening it would be to feel even that last version of myself slipping away, and how unbearably lonely that would be.