February 14th, 2016 - Nancy Lynne Westfield

Feb 13
4 min read

The challenge was dementia.

Not mine—his.

And yet, love being what it is, it became ours.

*

Sunday morning. February 14, 2016. Valentine’s Day, of all days. I am standing in my New Jersey kitchen regretting—deeply—my decision to attend a four-day conference in Houston, Texas. I had imagined the trip as respite, a brief exhale from caregiving. The previous two days had been swallowed whole by logistics: coordinating caregivers’ schedules, stocking the refrigerator and pantry, planning meals, arranging the next round of medical appointments, and clearing my work calendar so I could be gone. Caregiving is a master class in irony. Leaving takes more work than staying.

*

I suspect my life as a Daddy’s girl began the moment I heard my father’s voice. I was born in a car, after all—on the way to the hospital. I have always thought of myself as someone born in motion.

My father loved telling my birth story at my birthday parties. Monday morning, May 28, 1962, in his yellow 1960 Rambler.

Seated at the head of our dining table, he always began the same way:

Your mother and I were stuck in traffic near Broad and Allegheny.

Traffic was terrible.

She was in the passenger seat. I was terrified.

You slid out onto the floor and started crying.

I yelled, Pick it up! What is it?

Your mother reached down and said, It’s a girl.

She placed you on her stomach under her top.

You stopped crying and went to sleep.

Then came the policeman.

Pulled me over for speeding.

He didn’t believe me when I said my wife had just had a baby.

“Show him the baby,” I told your mother.

She lifted her top. There you were.

The cop jumped back and yelled, Follow me!

Lights. Sirens. Police escort to the hospital.

When we arrived, the nurses took you, orderlies took your mother,

and I sat alone in the driver’s seat—

waiting.

Nobody came!

That last line always brought laughter.

I love that my father loves this story.

*

When the car service arrives, I say goodbye to the caregiver and—out of habit—remind her that the hotel information is posted on the bulletin board. Max, our giant collie, is stretched out between my father’s chair and the front door, a living gatekeeper. Max is my father’s steadfast companion, loyal and watchful. I pat Max’s head and step over him. He does not move a muscle.

My dad reclines his Barcalounger, watches Sunday morning news. I kiss his forehead and say I’d call when I arrive. He doesn’t respond. Neither Dad nor Max like my suitcase. They both know what it means—my absence.

By this stage of dementia, there were only two places in my father’s world—gone or here. Houston, Newark, New Jersey—those details no longer matter. Place has collapsed into presence.

*

By 2008, both my parents were in declining health. My father had an early Alzheimer’s diagnosis. My mother’s arthritis was severe and immobilizing. In 2009, at my urging, they moved from our lifelong home in Philadelphia to my house in New Jersey. The decision took months—long, painful months of conversation and resistance. Forty-plus years in one house makes it nearly impossible to move. For my own survival, their move had to be made possible.

At one point my father asked why I couldn’t simply quit my job and move home.

That question landed hard. The thought of giving up my work—my vocation—was gut-wrenching. Too much to sacrifice. What I really wanted was for someone to come take care of all of us. Where were the police officers, nurses, and the orderlies now?

My mother died on December 7, 2010. Before she died, she mailed all her Christmas cards and ordered Christmas gifts for everyone. Packages arrived after we had already told friends she was gone. Explaining that she had prepared Christmas in advance felt strange—and perfectly her. Such a Nancy way to leave the world. She was a woman who did impossible things all the time.

After Mom’s death, Dad’s Alzheimer’s progressed. The disease is relentless. Care must constantly change as the person fades—memory first, then language, then body. In the final stages, care becomes round-the-clock vigilance.

*

I lock the front door carefully, making sure Dad and Max wouldn’t wander, and slide into the backseat of the black sedan. I confirm Newark Airport with the driver. As we amble through the small New Jersey towns toward the highway, I feel numb. Bone-tired numb. I try to pray. Nothing comes. I try to breathe deeply. Still nothing. I politely deflect the driver’s attempts at conversation. I sit—still—feeling as if I am moving toward lifelessness. In these twenty minutes, I wonder how long I can keep going like this. I wonder how close I am to breaking.

*

I will continue to watch my brilliant, capable father wither. And yet—this mercy—I will never disappear from him. He never forgets my name; he smiles whispering it, whenever I enter the room. This marvels the hospice nurses.

Dad will die on February 20, 2018. Max and I are with him.

Love carries us through dementia—his, ours—until the end.