January 15, 2012

Today was cold. Mid teens, I think. 18°F +/-. I walked into Sentry Hill and found my dad asleep on the built in seats next to the windows in the common area. His head falling downward, his body slumped and silhouetted before the large windows looking out toward the glass looking frozen pond. I pulled off my jacket and turned to sit down next to him. He instantly awoke and looked at my face. He said, "Oh, Kev!"

He then, with a smile said, "I, didn't, huh...know, huh."

I was happy to be recognized so quickly. He asked how I got there. I told him in my car and offered him a ride. He readily accepted. We checked out with nurse Judy and I lent my Dad my coat and in no time we were off, cruising Long Sands Beach. My Dad kept saying, " That is a lot of boats, Kev," as we drove along Route One A. The ocean on the right and houses and motels on the left. I said, "Dad! those are motels!"

"No, they are boats," he acknowledged as he watched the houses bathed in crisp winter lights pass by us. 

We turned right and headed toward the Nubble Lighthouse. When we got there we stopped and thought about getting out of the car. But when I opened my door and walked around the back of the car and to my Dad's door and opened it I realized it was far to cold and windy. So I reorganized my thoughts and we drove along the coast. At each intersection I asked him for directions and he always indicated a direction that was furthest away from where we had started. 

I haven't had my Dad out for a drive in at-least a year, maybe two. I constantly challenged his memory and asked all along the way if he knew where we were, if he knew who lived in that house or where this road would take us. He asked me if I had been at Albert's (my great grandfather who died in the 1940's). I said no and asked if he had. He replied, "Yes, and what a bunch of stuff that happened there."

As we drove along I thought of how he drove me in his car when I was his young son. How we would whistle Amazing Grace in unison and how that I knew then neither of us were tone deaf (in spite of what others told us). On the same roads we were driving now and then, 40 years later. Finally, we came to my driveway. I asked if he would like to drive out to my house. He said yes. So we drove along the half mile ice and snow crusted road that I had first found when I was 10 years old or so looking for a fishing hole. Back then there was no gravel and no pot holes, just a soft bed of rusty pine needles. There was barely a road at all back then. It only the easiest way to walk out here and ghostly impressions of wagon tracks form many years ago. 

We pulled up to the front door and I asked my Dad if he would like to try a gun that I had recently acquired. He shook his head in agreement and I asked him to wait in the car as the icy snow had made everything treacherous. I ran into the house and grabbed the gun and ran back out to the still running car. I opened up the box and carefully unlocked the gun. I checked for shells though I knew it wasn't loaded and then passed the gun to my Dad. 

He looked like a child at Christmas who had been handed a toy gun. His face lit up and he declared it was real! I said, "It sure is." I asked if he would like to shoot it. He said, "Ah, let me see, why not, Yes."

I took a magazine and loaded 3 rounds into it. I don't know why 3, it seemed like not too many and not too few. I opened my car door and put the gun into my back pocket. I walked around the car and opened his door and released his seat belt. He maneuvered around and pulled himself out of the passenger seat. He stood up on the slippery surface. Once he was comfortable I withdrew the gun from my back pocket. I put in the magazine and told him it was loaded and ready.

I passed him the gun and he held it like it was his own. I told him to shoot at the target that I had placed 15 feet in front of him. He didn't understand. I told him it was the big black circle on the white board. He couldn't recognize it. I asked him to pass me the gun and I would show him. I fired a round into the target and passed it back. He held it again as if he were going to shoot but could not find the target. I suggested he fire into the air. He declined. I fired the remaining rounds into the target and we got back into the warm car. I locked the gun.

As I drove back down the driveway he said he had had a dream last night. In his dream he was holding the gun we were just using and he was in a place that he couldn't quite describe. I asked him if it was at his home. He said no. What about my Aunt's? He said no. I said what about Thompson's Meadow. He said yes. To clarify I asked him, "With my gun?" He said yes. He then asked if I could believe it. I said yes I could.

June 19, 2009

Handsome Factor

Yesterday was much better for me that the previous day. I got a lot accomplished at work which makes visiting my father much easier. When I need to get more done at work and the day is past and I leave to see my dad I feel very confused. Being self employed requires whatever it takes to be in business and leaving before the necessary is accomplished is a compromise, meaning something will come up short. It is also difficult visiting my dad when my kids are home. I truly miss not going home and being with them. And when I am at home I feel like I should visit my dad. I search for a balance but my conscience won't let me feel absolved.

Last night we met Theresa and her dad, Frank at the York Hospital Cafeteria for dinner. It was raining. My father very much looks forward to any opportunity to seeing Theresa and last night was no exception. I couldn't pick him up from Sentry Hill before they served dinner. So I called and spoke with the charge nurse and asked her to prevent my father from eating at the prescribed time of 5pm. She said she would. When I arrived he had a note in his hand with large letters inscribed with a sharpie that said, "Do Not Eat, Kevin Will Be Taking Me Out To Dinner."

As I entered the Browning Wing he was sitting near the door. When he noticed me he held up the paper so I could see it. We both laughed. The other residents were sitting in the dining area and I signed my dad out, hailed a goodbye to the nurses and we walked out into the rain.

After dinner at the hospital we took a drive to Long Sands Beach and up around the Nubble Lighthouse. My dad had asked me before and again last night if we could drop in on some friends he knew on Broadway Avenue. I was tepid but conceded. I really had hoped they wouldn't be home as he pointed to the house. I wasn't sure if we would be greeted friendly or if it was even the right house.

My father jumped out of my truck and up the front steps onto the porch. He pounded on the door and before I knew it the door was opened by an elderly man with a large smile. A female voice started yelling, "Haven, Haven!! Where have you been? My gawd, we haven't seen you in so long! This must be your son, Kevin! Come in, here is a chair.

I could tell we were in good company. The home was very tidy, no TV. The lady (whose name I didn't get) began asking my father a hundred questions. She asked him to sing for her. She looked at me and declared he has a great voice. She informed me that he has always sang for her and promted him to begin. He started singing Amazing Grace. As he was singing she exclaimed how handsome he was. "Haven, she said," gosh, you are such a handsome man!"

Though he know where the notes were his voice waivered slightly. He has been singing this song for over 60 years and he knew it as well as anything. When he finished she told him he has a perfect voice. He seemed surprised. He glanced over at me and we all applauded.

The hostess and my father talked as if they were old friends with her husband, who she referred to as Cappy, contributing occassionally. She asked my father about Sentry Hill and decided that he had to be the most handsome man there. My dad seemed very content to be with these people whom I had never met. The lady asked my dad if he was 80 and he said yes. She then said that her and Cappy had both recently turned 90. I was astounded. They were both in what appeared to be very good physical shape and mentally if they told me they were in their 40's I would have believed.

Our visit last about an hour. I gave them my fathers address and room number and he asked them to visit him at Sentry Hill. As we drove back he told me he had met them at a yard sale they were having about 5 years ago. Since then he had dropped in on them every few months (with the exception of the last 6 months).

Nearly everywhere I take my dad plus at Sentry Hill my father is complimented on his good looks. Friends from the past, strangers, my friends, just come up to him and say,"Haven, you are soooo handsome."

One of my friends approached me in Rite Aid last week and said, "Everytime I see your dad I think wow, that guy is a movie star."

I think this is a blessing for my dad. Although dementia is certainly terrible he gets a lot of attention just from his looks.

May 27, 2009

Memorial Day Weekend is now behind us. I managed to spend most of Saturday and Monday with my father. On Sunday evening Sandra, Nathaniel, Amber and I took him out for an ice cream to a location of his choice. He picked Brown's Old Fashioned Ice Cream near the Nubble Lighthouse in York Beach. The kids size, which we all had was very large. His favorite is butter crunch.

Sandra's mom had an episode on Thursday and we told my father about it while standing in the huge line waiting to order ice cream. She was diagnosed with bleeding in her brain in late winter. She spent some time in the hospital and fortunately made a great recovery. We have come to regard her as a very special lady and my father took the news pretty hard. His body flinched as he listed and then he asked for more details. Sandra told him she was ok, that she had spoken with her and she didn't need to go to the hospital. He was relieved and asked Sandra to tell her he hopes she gets well soon. It was obvious he was very concerned about her.

It is very interesting to me how some things my father remembers completely and somethings he cannot recall but tries to talk about. Often he will not remember that I visited him the previous day according to my sister, but when I return with him to a place he had been a few days earlier he has full recollection. As on Saturday we were working in the garden, he was very content turning the soil over with a spadefork. However he kept looking over at my rototiller parked on the garden's edge as if it were taking a long winter's nap and was ready to wake up. He started asking me why we weren't using it. I told him it wasn't working and he said, "let's fix it."

We towed it from the garden up to the house and began pulling off the starter cord recoil and looked around for some rope to replace the broken one. We found some rope, replaced the broken cord and started pulling. The rope broke immediately.

My sister said she asked him on Sunday what he had done on Saturday and he said nothing. She asked him if he had seen me and he said,"no." Evidently attempting to fix the rototiller had escaped his memory.

On Monday I brought him to our house again and he got right out of the truck and walked up to the rototiller and found I had bought a new cord. He said, "Oh, you got a new one."

He then began to pull on it remembering where we had left off. Bye the way, the tiller still wouldn't start, I think there are carburator issues now.

On Monday my father and I walked to the Memorial Day Parade from Sentry Hill. My son, Silas was drumming in the York High School Band. Unfortunately, the parade was so small and passed so quickly we barely had time to pick him out. It was fun though. My father has gone to the parade for many years. We saw and stood beside some friends of his and to whom he was a bit grumpy with. When they asked him how he had been he said sarcastically, "what do you mean? How do you think I have been?"

This type of response doesn't encourage people to visit with him at Sentry Hill.

....Back to Monday. I walked to the parade with my father and then brought him back to Sentry Hill. He asked if we could go upstairs to see the saw marks or similar on the floor. I had no idea what he was referring to but agreed. We walked up a tall flight of stairs and opened the door into a lobby directly across from a nurses station. The head nurse was standing there and asked my father how he was. She was looking at him intently and asked what was going on with his lips. They were grayish, white. I hadn't noticed.

She sat him down in a chair and took his blood pressure. She said it was 90 over 60. His pulse was 60. I though this was pretty good and then she added that it is very sporadic. She suggested he rest a while. He went on to tell her how much he wanted to go home. That he didn't want to die there. He said he didn't mind dying if he was doing something he wanted to, but why would he want to die there? She was very sympathetic but otherwise wasn't able to help him.

It was very difficult to leave him. I told him I would come back later. The day was beautiful and he asked me if we could go out and look for the ducks in the pond. We went out. We were both very quiet. I knew how badly he wanted to go home. Finally, I said I was going to leave. He walked inside, through the locked doors and into the space so unbeautiful compared to the outdoors we had just left.

I picked him back up around 3:30. We went over to a graveyard where his sister Evelyn is buried. He also intends on being burried here. As it was memorial day I asked Amber and Nathaniel if they would like to come and rake up the graveyard and do some pruning. Although Memorial Day is intended to commemorate fallen soldiers it is also a good time to clean up family graves and reminiss about people my kids never got to know. They agreed and we all spent a bit of time in the woods trimming and tidying up.

Sandra stayed home and cooked dinner for us all. Upon our return home my father ate two baked potates, two ears of corn on the cobb a generous serving of haddock and a piece of apple pie that Sandra baked. We had a nice time with him. And later Sandra said, "I really enjoyed having your dad here."