We are now beginning our descent
No passenger knows how long the descent is. A pilot can say that they’ve begun the descent, but excluding their estimate of how much time until we touch down, it’s sort of meaningless to most of us.
How high is thirty-thousand feet anyway? Can us mere landwalkers really distinguish between twenty- and thirty-thousand feet—without direct photo comparisons?
We just know that, well, we’re descending. We know it’s time to strap in out seatbelts (or at least pretend to and hide our rebellion under a jacket or something), open the window shades, and sit there and wait. And wait.
Eventually we can see the ground get closer and closer, and then there’s that moment where you just seem to hover above the ground and you wonder why we haven’t landed yet or if we’re going to land, or what about now, or now, or—
And then there’s that bounce. The wheels touch the pavement. And like that, the descent, and the journey, it’s all done.
Are we the selfish ones (two)
I take you to see Dad every day. Sometimes twice a day. Even when we move him to the skilled nursing facility—you don’t know what that is…how about I call it a rehab center—you want to go there twice a day. It eats up hours of the day, my day. I have nothing to do while we’re there, and technically neither do you, and yet you seem to get something out of it that I don’t.
If I had to bet (and I mean that figuratively, because you’re allergic to anything I do that’s remotely related to gambling), I’d bet that you miss Dad. You hate it when he yells at you, doesn’t value you—let alone say ‘thank you,’ is mean to the person who holds the door open for him just a little bit too long.
But the moment he’s gone, you’re his knight in shining armor, a set of armor that always looks like it’s about to collapse and clang as the pieces fall to the floor.
“I really pray to God that He takes John home soon,” I hear you say, sometimes to me, sometimes to people over the phone.
But I don’t think you’re really ready for that. You certainly don’t seem ready, even at home.
Are we the selfish ones (one)
I think you’re sick.
You cough. But you always cough a lot—still, something tells me that you’re coughing more than usual. Like you’re almost wheezing.
You seem weaker. You can’t get up without Mom’s help. I wonder if it’s the couch that’s the problem—it’s leather and the cushion has a lot of give so you practically sink into it. So I buy you a new one. It’s firmer, and you seem to like it. But you still seem like you have trouble standing up. Or staying standing up.
I buy you a brand new walker. I push it to you. You push it away. Even when I’m holding you and I can tell you’d fall over the moment I let you go, you push the walker away. How come strength and sense fades with Alzheimer’s, but not stubbornness? Someone goofed up somewhere.
Mom thinks you’re fine. She says you’re fine. You’re just being lazy. You’re just being dramatic. Somehow, I think she’s sneaking in a “I really hope…” in the beginning of each of those.
We finally test your temperature. It’s one hundred two.
I give you Tylenol. Mom asks me to take you to the ER. I say let’s wait an hour to see if the fever goes down. But she’s made up her mind, and like a cooked egg, late-night college mistakes, or the One Ring, some things just can’t be unmade.
“Daniel, please. Okay? I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t go. Can we just go now? Okay? Please. Okay?”
“Let’s go,” I say, two minutes later.
Marrying up
I know what my dad would do without me, or at least, without me in the house. He’d be in some sort of an assisted-living center and I’d go visit him once or twice a week. I’d bring a book and sit with him for a few hours. Probably wear super powerful noise-cancelling headphones while he watches the news. Maybe take him to “Pandas” every once in a while.
But what would my dad do without my mom?
Being my dad’s caregiver is really only the latest in a string of choices my mom has made in their married life, choices that put someone else way above herself. My mom has always taken care of my dad, with the big things (she was the breadwinner of the two and ensured their financial stability) and with the little things (she did the cooking and the dishes). The one thing my dad contributed to the logistical part of their relationship was filing taxes. Not a small detail for sure, but not quite exactly pulling his weight either. I suppose he did drive my mom around at times, but given how my dad continued to drive like he was a New York yellow cab driver even when he left New York, I’m not sure that should really count.