Notes from Maine - 2020/06/08
My father is sounding better. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I would be able to have a clear conversation with him again. He just wasn’t the same. It could have been because of one of the infections, or maybe because of the drugs they were using to treat him. Whatever the cause, it’s mostly gone now. There are only a few glitches in his reasoning. I suppose that they’re no worse than what he was experiencing at home before all this occurred.
Now, his little lapses in memory almost seem endearing.
At one point he was staying with me for a bit. I don’t remember why. Over the years, he has spent a week or two at my house here and there, for one reason or another. There was surgery on his neck, or his back. There was a bout of pneumonia that almost took him down. One particular visit, I was getting frustrated with the repeated questions. They sounded like accusations of failure.
“What did you ever do about that problem with…”
Or, “How are you going to…”
Little nagging irritants would get lodged in his brain and several times an hour he would ask me about them as if they were freshly occurring to him. I suppose they were.
I got so frustrated that I wrote down all the answers to his questions, printed out my answers, and put them on the table next to his chair. When he asked me a question, I replied with, “That’s number three, Dad. On your sheet there? The answer to that is number three.”
Then, there would be a moment of confusion and he would remember that we had gone through the conversation before. The frustration was transferred successfully from me to him. Instead of me being frustrated about the repetitive question, it was him being frustrated at the realization that he couldn’t trust his own brain anymore. I took away the sheet of paper after an hour. It was too upsetting to both of us. I should have known.
Since then, I’ve tried to be kinder in my approach. I succeed sometimes. As difficult as it is for me to deal with him, it’s twice as hard for him when he recognizes his own cognitive decline. If I can spare him that, I should. The alternative doesn’t help anyone—it’s not like there’s anything he can do about it.
Dad is in a new rehab unit now. It’s closer to me and they allow “window visits,” so I can go perch in the bushes and talk to him like a weird Peeping Tom. He’s horribly weak. The one thing he can control is how much food he eats. We all encourage him to try to keep up his strength, but he barely eats anything. After more than two months, the results show in his face. His teeth jut out more than they should. Leaning forward to get the newspaper from his tray the other day, I thought he was going to pass out from the effort.
I hope this isn’t too depressing. I don’t mean it to be. Now that I’ve seen Dad with my own eyes, the reality of his situation is setting in. He has his wits (mostly) even if the rest of his body is fading away. That’s all any of us can ask for, unless we’re granted the quick release of a sudden accident, right? His eventual absence won’t be tragic, just a natural conclusion.
I hope you’re well. I hope you’re taking care of yourself and the ones you love.
The book I’m sending out today is one that I wrote in a fairly dark period. Sometimes I dwell in the corners, trying to make sense of things by exploring the worst I can imagine. I hope there’s something to learn there. I feel like I should offer a warning about this particular book. It contains scenes of abuse that could be a place you don’t want to follow. In the end though, it’s about sacrifice, selflessness, and hope. I hope it feels that way for you.
