Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-10-26 - 12:07 p.m.

Someone Else's Goodbye

Oh it's you!
Hi, Dad! It's good to see you!
It's good to see you.
I brought the girls to see you today too.
Well, will you look at that.

Do you drive?
Yes, I drive.
Do you have a car?
Yes, I do.
Will you drive me to your house?

Where do you live?
In (my home city.)
Can I live with you?

Did you drive here?
Yes, I did.
Where is your car?
In the parking lot over there.
Can I go with you in it?

(Watching the girls playing) They're fast.
Yes, they're fast children.
How many more are there?
That's it, Dad. I thought two was enough.
(Watching) One was enough.

Do you live around here?
Not too far from here, yes.
When did you come here?
This area? I've been here a long time.
Can I go live at your house?

How many people can fit in your car?
Sometimes five and sometimes seven if they're small.
Wow.
Yes, it's a station wagon.
Do you have room for me?

You know, I don't have any friends here.
Does it feel like that? The people here really like you.
(Looks away.)

I have to go now, Dad.
Can I come with you?
No, you have dinner reservations here.
Dinner?
Yes, it's five o'clock.
I never have dinner here.
Well, try it tonight.


******************
Another Alzheimer's victim "went home" today.

I just read the note to the Alzheimer's list. When I first joined the List years ago, I could not read these posts. I could not bear to think of it, I couldn't share that much pain, I would cry at the sight of the subject lines: "Mom went home today". "The Journey is done".

Then, for a while, I saw them as joyous telegrams. Another victim was released from the slow horror. Some went quickly, of heart attacks and other more merciful killers, and for those we said our silent thanks. Gone, over, done, good. What a disease, that it makes you jealous of those whose loved ones die quickly. I wrote my condolences, careful never to write that I was sorry for a death when I wasn't; always careful to write that I was sorry that the journey had begun at all, and that I wished that the finding of peace for the family be a gentler road, now.

Then I could not read them at all again. I saw them come in, and I knew families had losses, families I'd come to know and care about, and I could not respond. I was dumb, and confused. I didn't understand. I knew grief as an everyday pain, mourning as something we do in the back of our minds every minute as we hold the hands and quiet the unreasoning fears of our loved ones. But I did not know what death meant. I don't know today.

Today another loved one has died, and died before she got so far down the road that she could no longer speak, that she could no longer remember how to swallow food - and I know this is good, this is the pain of amputation of a limb that was not quite ready to be lost but oh, how much better this way than to wait - how much kinder --

But I can't find the joy. I can only find one small corner of the grief, and perhaps it is that I have gotten more myopic, that I see only my father when I read these things. My father who the doctors say is "not so bad off", who is sometimes content in his small and baffling world, who asks constantly when I will take him home.

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