A Graceful Exit

A Graceful Exit

I want to accept these changes with grace. Mom and Dad would wish for it, these days. My heart wants that. The path to grace, though. That’s where I’m going to fuck up. Occasionally lose my shit.

Loss. The loss of Dad. The loss of Mom. In increments. Each day. As their disease shifts in their brains. As it moves about. Making an aimless mess of things. A little loss each day. Subtle. Sometimes profound. A leap forward into darkness.

We had to move Dad to the nursing facility this week. Rose Court. The Shady Pines of my existence. If only Sophia Petrillo was in the room across the hall, not the man who calls out “Help me!” every few minutes.

Mom can see Rose Court from the window. Across the parking lot from their apartment. It might as well be on another plane. She doesn’t understand that he’s not coming back. Her Alzheimer’s is either protecting her from the heart ripping pain of that reality, or every time she asks when he’s coming home, she’s trying to reach closer to an inner strength she knows is there.

I’m barely able to comprehend this new change myself. The depth of sadness comes in abrupt waves. I put sticky notes on the walls of my Dad’s “new room” where pictures will get mounted. A framed photo of Dad, standing on the dock, in a ball cap, button down shirt, khakis, admiring his sailboat, moored securely a few feet away. A warm folk art painting of a Humpback whale and calf. It had been leaning against the wall in the no longer used office of their apartment. These pictures. More for staff to understand Dad as a human, than for Dad to feel a familiar comfort. At this point, we’re beyond Dad knowing how to navigate in any realm but that of the dimming light within him. He barely opens his eyes as we visit.

I want to accept these changes with grace. Life and death and all that is in between are just passing moments. My desperate quest to tap into the Pema Chodron mindset of groundlessness. “You are the sky. Everything else -it’s just the weather.” Yeah, but I grew up in New England. The weather is everything.

I want Dad to leave his amazing life with grace, with peace, with a beautiful smile on his face as he takes his last breath. As if in his mind, he’s holding the tiller as his sailboat bounces on the waves, sails full, with a warm summer wind across the bow.

I want the same exit for Mom. Although, I’m pretty sure the sailboat scenario would not be first on the list. For her, it might be standing behind a podium, lecturing about the importance of local property tax assessment. For real. With a big smile on her face.

I realize this exit plan is a lot to hope for. I realize we may not get anything close to that hope.

I can aspire to grace. I can damn try. But if whatever exists, (and I’m not convinced of anything other than the LOVE we bring to each moment), that is greater than ourselves, lets Dad and Mom linger in this frightening fog. I’m going stumble. Fall. A lot. And take my damn time getting back up. And try to give myself some grace too.

Accepting these changes with Mom and Dad. Accepting that death is nearby. Hovering.

Three Breaths And In

I had an uneasy feeling today. It was somehow more than usual. I could tell by the blank look in Dad’s eyes when I walked in that he didn’t know who I was. That’s the first time in their apartment. When it happened before, it was out in the hallway, or in the hospital. But here, where I have greeted my Dad so many times before, from his chair in the TV room. Empty eyes stared back.

Later on in the visit, he asked me, “Do you still go by Jerry or do you prefer Jerome?”

I looked at Mom. And let out a breath. Dad thinks I’m his cousin. That’s what he’s said twice before, when we’ve been out taking a walk in the hallway, where the confusion finds him. But now at least I know which cousin. Dad has many. This particular cousin, Jerry, lives out in California with his wife. He’s in his late 80’s. But that’s the thing. Dad is immersed in his memories. I’m going to say Dad was seeing Jerry in his late 30’s when he was looking at me. At 55, I’ll take what I can get. And using humor right now, helps move my emotions through this unknowable reality.

This is the road we are on. I know, with this past year of pandemic, it’s accelerated this adventure. I know he will still have some more lucid hours ahead, when he knows exactly who I am and we talk about the beauty of the birds flying by the window, his interest in the exploration of Mars, or the sound waves of a symphony playing on the radio.

But today, I didn’t know how to respond when he asked me. Mom swerved away from the question. She wrestles with her own sense of reality too. We went on to something else. The wind pushing the trees around outside their window. Is there wind inside my Mom and Dad’s brains, pushing memories around until they are all mixed up in a tangled mess? I look hard at Mom and Dad’s faces. The same dear faces that I’ve taken in countless times. But behind their faces, deep inside their brains, the dark mystery of what’s shifting, the twisted dancing of Alzheimer’s – it’s a realm of comprehension that I may never grasp.

Will Dad know who I am next time?

Three breaths and in.

Three breaths and in.