April: Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.
-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
It was a grey day, last Friday, with that rolling April wind that comes on like it's made of silk ribbons of warm and cold air. The kind of day that seems poised on an edge, ever changing, tempestuous. Appropriate since it mirrors the way I feel about visiting my father in the Home. I love him dearly, and I realized quite some time ago, that he was maybe the only real hero I ever knew. But to visit him now, to see him as he is, it wrenches me. I don't think I'm being egotistical or unfair to my family by thinking that my father was one of the special ones. Born third of seven, he seems to have been an accessible man to all of his brothers and sisters. They all had reasons for thinking they had a special connection with him, in that way that people confirm the existence of love by certain memories, callbacks to emotional times, shared moments. He didn't stand out in a crowd, he didn't draw attention to himself, he smiled at you and laughed with you. But now, there isn't much he can do for himself. He can't talk, can't remember how to take care of his personal hygiene, and can't survive on his own. Alzheimer's doesn't hurt you, it takes you away.
Opening the door to the Home is like falling down the rabbit hole. Old men and women walk around the house trying to connect with place, with each other, with the images they see. They speak to the caretakers, to visitors, and to each other, but they say nonsensical things. Some are obsessively complimentary, some are overtly crude and racist. Some call out for help. It is an amalgam of damaged humanity. A slice of primeval mind... men and women lost in a haze of dreams and memories. In order to relate I try to imagine that feeling I have of trying to remember the name of an actor or book that escapes me... desperate to make the right connection, searching for that name that's on the tip of my tongue... endless. I have a theory that they are all in a memory loop, having old conversations, speaking to their families, enjoying the life they had again. My father has garnered praise for being quiet. The caretakers ask me if he's always been quiet, and my mother says he was, but in my mind I can only think of all the times he's spoken, a lifetime of laughter and conversation.
He seems to have had problems letting them help him with his personal hygiene, which has forced them to use drugs to sedate him a little. Although they shave his face, brush his teeth, and give him a haircut, he seems to have a permanent tuft of hair coming out of his nose, and it's always a mess. Towards the end of his time at our home, he would spend way too much time brushing his two front teeth, up and down for 15 minutes at at time. We've had to buy him new shoes with velcro because he took all his shoestrings out and lost them. If there is a napkin on the table or a piece of paper he picks it up and tries to arrange it, or fold it, always keeping his hands busy. When he stands in front of a mirror he can't connect the man in the image with himself, so he becomes obsessed with his reflection and tries to talk to it, threatens it, moves his hands trying to figure out how the man in front of him can mirror his actions. He can only walk in short, stunted steps, seemingly afraid to stride confidently forward. Just thinking about him, and the way he is now, seems to scatter my own mind. I've tried three different times to write about my father and it always seems to fall short of my ambitions. I always end up trailing off, unsatisfied with the results of my attempts to describe my feelings for him. It's so difficult to decipher these new rules. So hard to translate in the spaces we're allotted. If I had more time, if I could spend years on it, I could come up with a definite answer to the riddle Alzheimer's sets upon us. But all I can do is describe the broken pieces, try to untangle this web one strand at a time.
My mother met me at the Home last Friday, but I was early so I sat down with him, tried to coax some kind of greeting out of him, some small talk, only to come up empty. So while we waited I picked up a newspaper and told him about the Detroit Tigers and the Mud Hens... I read him some of the headlines and talked about current events, and this seemed to engage him. He perked up and listened, trying to remember the names of people in the news, watching me talk. Perhaps this is something I can indulge in with him. Maybe he doesn't need to tell me things anymore. Maybe I should tell him things. When my mom showed up she brought him his new shoes and we took him out to dinner. We went to Rudy's and had some chili dogs and fries, and since the weather was bad we took him back. There wasn't much we could do for him that day. We took him back into the house and he simply fell in line with the rest of the residents, walking behind them into the dining room to eat dinner. Mom and I watched him walk away, decided we might as well go, and walked out. As we left my mom said to me, "He doesn't belong to us anymore, he belongs to them." All I could do was put my arms around her and let her cry a bit. I think she's been on the edge of breakdown for the past few years. When she feels down, she must have that sick feeling in her stomach, that seemingly black empty hole that leads to real heartache. She begins to cry then pulls back, avoiding a debilitating, paralyzing, three day sob. After all she has to drive home.
What seems to me the real crime here is how young he is. He's sixty five and my mother is almost sixty two. The golden years have been ripped away from them. Their plans to travel and enjoy their retirement are over, and it appears to me like he won't be able to even be there for my wedding. If we have children, he won't know them other than the times we bring the baby to him. My future wife will never know the man he was and her family will never know him. It is a kind of tragedy. I always knew that one day my parents would both be gone from this world, and as we've aged I've become more and more philosophical about it, but I always thought we'd have more time, more memories to make. But it's a bit of a blessing, too, because I can see now, how short life really is, how beautiful is this world and this time, how much of it I've wasted, and how I don't want to waste anymore. My future life has always seemed like a distant horizon, I could see it and I knew I was moving toward it, but always it was undefined, vague and blurred. Now I am careening toward it, actively chasing it, desperate to live a good life. It's what he always wanted for me. Until we meet again...
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