This Father’s Day, I’m not sure if I should call my dad. I had the same misgivings a few days ago when it was his birthday. He turned 87. It’s not what you think. I have a wonderful father and we’ve had no falling out. But I anticipate that the phone calls will be more distressing to him than heartwarming.

See, my father has dementia, and this year it’s gotten much worse. He can’t get dressed without supervision, can no longer make his beloved Turkish coffee, cannot recognize that a tissue paper is a tissue paper and sometimes, when he wakes at night, can’t find his way back to his bed. He’s walked out of the house several times and gotten lost (the police helped bring him back).

Like all dementia sufferers, he has moments of lucidity but when the cloudiness hits, I’m not sure he knows who he is. I’m not sure he knows who I am. When I ask him, he says: “Of course. You are my habibti” (my love). And I think I see a flicker of recognition in his eyes. But I can’t say for sure.

I thought that I was an evil anomaly in my hesitation to contact my father. But then I read about a survey by the Alzheimer’s Society that found that over 40 percent of respondents said it was “pointless” to keep in touch with loved ones who could no longer recognize them.