Remembering Dad
In the last year of his life, my dad forgot the names of his children. When I visited my parents, mom had to remind him who I was. This is what Alzheimer’s did to the man I once believed knew everything.
I am a middle-child, one of seven children. Dad and I were never that close. I have no memory of him showing me affection, except for occasional sideways hugs. He never told me he was proud of me, or that he loved me. I don’t doubt he felt those feelings; he just wasn’t able to say them. He showed love by his actions.
I loved dad, and see him in my humor, hairline, the shape of my thumbs, my fondness for smoked oysters on crackers, and my middle name, which is the same as his first name. No doubt the oysters and Catholicism influenced the size of our family, which filled a church pew. But even with seven children to support, dad always put an offering in the collection basket. When I was a child, it didn’t occur to me that there were fathers who told their children they loved them. It was only when I married that I realized the importance of saying those words.
Dad died of Alzheimer’s in August of 2006. I sometimes think of the things I admired about him: how he provided for us by working at his body-and-fender shop, a career he disliked; the ability to pound a nail with either hand; his honesty; the way he led my mom around the floor when they danced; his quiet humility.
Alzheimer’s robbed my dad gradually, and showed its effects in lost keys, saying the wrong words for things, confusion about dates, how to work television remotes, and forgetting how to play familiar card games. In 2003, mom confided that she felt unsafe driving with him. She said they’d narrowly averted being in an accident when he ran a stoplight. He sometimes forgot where they lived, and often became angry over little things. The major loss was when he forgot how to dance, which was a big blow to mom because they had been members of a dancing club for over forty years, and had gone out nearly every Saturday night.
Mom tried to pretend dad was fine, but the stress was too much, and she asked her children for help. Dad resisted going to the doctor; it took the intervention of my eldest brother to talk him into it. In the beginning, he passed the memory tests, but within six months he began to fail them and was put on Alzheimer’s medication. He improved and my mom again acted as if everything was fine. But after a few months the dosages had to be increased. Mom grew worried again: the illness had thrust her into a leadership role she didn’t want. The family rallied around her. We mowed the yard, vacuumed, and repainted the house. With dad’s worsening condition it was decided that my parents should move to an assisted living facility. They had been downsizing for ten years since selling the farm in the early 1990s. Ironically, dad’s illness mirrored their diminishing living situations. Just before they moved from their house, I visited my parents with my wife and two children. I went with the purpose of helping dad put a new battery in his pickup so he could sell it. I drove dad to an auto parts store, and the staff behind the counter greeted him, but he didn’t know their names. He wrote the check with difficulty, and asked the amount several times. His once neat handwriting was nearly illegible.
When we got back I helped put the battery in the truck. The battery cables weren’t clearly marked, so I was unsure which was positive or negative. Dad, in a moment of clarity, told me the cable with a larger end was the positive one. I hooked up the cables and the engine started on the first try. We stood silently and watched the motor run. I glanced at dad; he seemed pleased, so I shut the truck’s hood and turned off the motor.
After lunch, dad looked anxiously out the window and said, “Do you think we ought to go out and see if we could get a battery for the truck?”
“No, dad,” I replied, “we just put a battery in it. It started fine.”
Ten minutes passed. My children watched cartoons; my wife helped my mom load the dishwasher. Dad put on his coat and said, “I think I’ll go out and see if I can start that truck.”
Mom gave me a knowing look, as if to say, now you know what I’m going through. I humored him. I started the engine, and Dad opened the hood so he could see the new battery. “This battery looks brand new,” he said. “Did I write a check for it?”
“Yes, you wrote the check,” I replied. “It was for one-hundred-seventy dollars.”
He shut the hood and said, “You know more than I do.”
We walked to the house, but dad stopped by the door. “Now,” he asked, “is that the old battery, or the new one, in my truck?”
“The new one, dad.”
He went into the living room and sat in a recliner. In five minutes he was asleep. I thought about what had happened. I thought about him saying I knew more than he knew. It was a first; I never knew what my father knew. He had built houses and knew about framing, roofing, wiring, and plumbing. He’d poured concrete, baled hay, overhauled engines, felled trees, and done body-and-fender work. Where had that knowledge gone? Was it still in his mind but he couldn’t tap into it, or was it lost forever?
In the summer of 2005 I visited my parents by myself. Much had changed since I’d last seen them. They had sold their house and moved into an assisted living complex. I had divorced after nearly nineteen years of marriage. My parents greeted me as I came into their apartment. I was surprised by mom’s appearance: her hair was white, and she looked gaunt and tired. She explained that she had given up dying her hair. She looked ten years older than the last time I’d seen her. She had been diagnosed with colon cancer and was scheduled for an operation. My father looked well. Mom told him who I was, and he said, “I thought you looked familiar.”
I had arrived in time for dinner, so we went to the facility’s dining room. Three times during dinner dad asked mom if she had brought money to pay for the meal. Each time she patiently explained they didn’t have to pay, but the explanation didn’t get through to him.
As I lay on the pullout couch in their living room that night I heard mom explaining to dad that I was divorced. I awoke that night to the sound of them talking in their bedroom. She was telling him that it was two in the morning, and that he needed to go to sleep.
“But I don’t know where I am!” he said.
She explained that they were in their room, and that everything was all right.
“But who am I?” he asked.
She explained who he was and what town they lived in, and he was quiet for a few minutes. Then he got up to pee. I fell asleep to the sound of him wiping up the floor where he had missed the toilet. She told me the next day that one time he had peed in the closet.
At breakfast, mom put Alzheimer’s pills, a glass of orange juice, and a bowl of cereal, in front of dad. Mom and I began eating but dad stared blankly at the items set before him.
“What do I do with these?” he asked.
“Take your pills for Saturday,” she replied. “Swallow the pills with the orange juice, and eat your cereal.”
“What are these pills for?” he asked.
“They’re for your memory, dear.”
“Where’d we get them?”
“The doctor gave them to us.”
“Does he take them?”
“No.”
“Then how does he know they work?”
“He just does.”
Dad swallowed the pills and poked his spoon at the cereal. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this stuff,” he said.
“You’re supposed to eat it,” she said. “It’s cereal.”
After breakfast, mom asked me to help her shower dad. We went into the bathroom and she told him to undress. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t take a shower with his pajamas on, and she had to ask him repeatedly before he removed his clothing. Mom turned on the shower and told him to get in. He obeyed and stood in the spray, stiff as a manikin.
“Wet your hair,” she instructed.
“How do I do that?” he asked.
“Get under the shower.”
She lathered his hair and he rinsed him off. Then she helped him out, and turned to me to ask if I would lotion him. I saw the desperation in her face and agreed. I dried him off and felt awkward; I had never seen dad naked. He seemed oblivious, so I squeezed a blob of lotion onto my palm. His skin was terribly dry and red. I asked permission to lotion him.
“Okay,” he said angrily, “I’m just tired of all this shit.”
“Of what, dad?”
“Of people telling me to do things I don’t want to do.”
Mom took dad into their bedroom, laid his clothes on the bed, and told him to get dressed. I waited in the living room; I could hear her telling him that he had to remove his pants because he had forgotten to put on underwear, and that he couldn’t wear shoes without socks. He asked why and she replied that it wasn’t how things were done.
Shortly thereafter I drove my parents to the farm where we’d once lived. I asked dad if he remembered anything, and he said none of it looked familiar. When we visited the family that had purchased his old house, it was clear that he didn’t know who they were.
Near the end of my dad’s illness, he was moved to the Alzheimer’s wing of the assisted living facility. Mom visited often, though she was not feeling well. During her operation the surgeons discovered she had tumors on her liver. They said she had just months to live.
Dad had forgotten who mom was by this time. One day when she visited him he asked her to marry him. She laughed and said ‘Yes.’ Moments later he forgot he had asked her.
When dad died mom said she felt as if she was half a person. He died one day short of their sixty-third wedding anniversary. Mom died in October, eleven weeks later, her eyes yellow from the effects of liver failure. Her hand stayed warm for some time after she died. They visit me in my dreams; they are young and happy, as if to affirm, ‘We’re all right, don’t worry.’ When I arrived home the last time I saw dad alive, I drove to my old house to see my son. It’s always odd to be a stranger there, to have to ring the doorbell. I thought of my dad saying he didn’t know who he was or where he lived, because it feels like that. My son let me in. We hugged by the piano, its top displaying family photos, as if nothing had changed. My ex-wife was in the kitchen baking cookies. Our black Pomeranian bounced around my feet, as if I’d been away a short time. I held my son longer than usual. “I love you,” I said.
“I love you too, dad,” he replied. “I’ll always love you no matter what.”
I hope I never forget that.
