The Taboo Moment

As always, my trip felt too short. There was never enough time to get it all done. There were always so many requests, so many adjustments, so many to-dos that I never left my father and returned to New York feeling a sense off accomplishment. So I adopted his habit of keeping lists on his behalf--And they never seemed to get any shorter.

I had 45 minutes to say goodbye to dad before heading to the airport.
Dad’s last request before I left was to help him with “the voices.” Apparently, the neighbors next door were keeping him awake at night with their mumbling. At this point I never thought to question what dad had seen or heard. I still took everything seriously. Taking great care to ensure each time before I flew home, dad was left in good spirits, as comfortable as possible, with all adjustments made, and all items crossed off the list. 
But this current request was a bit more complicated than the others.

I racked my brain for a useful quick fix. One that would keep him from being bothered by his mumbling neighbors in enough time to get me back to New York on the last flight out. I was desperate for a 30-minute solution. I could pass the buck to the ladies at the front desk, but I knew once I walked out that door the dilemma would be dropped. One of those Zen alarm clocks could do the trick, drowning out their ramblings with crashing waves or thunderstorms--But it was nearly 7PM, Wallgreens was a 10 minute drive, and my chances of making it before closing were slim.  I considered the direct approach; just knocking on the door and talking to the neighbors myself…but there was no way to accomplish a polite sit down in 30 minutes or less.  Stating my father’s case then running out of the room to catch a plane would be rude. The least I could do was offer them a box of Russell Stover’s or something, which again required Walgreen’s.  A benevolent quest that time, unfortunately, did not permit.

I had 28 minutes to come up with an answer and I could feel my anxiety mounting.  Dad stood there in the corner staring at me blankly, patiently waiting for the light bulb to flash above my head, totally unaffected by my quandary.  He lingered, anticipating a cue to respond…I considered the ridiculousness of my own anxiety as I wondered to myself if he even remembered complaining about the neighbors in the first place. Then the semi-rational idea hit me:

“OK, dad here’s what we’ll do…We’ll move your bed to the opposite side of the room so you won’t hear your neighbors so much. We can put it there (roughly 36 inches away from where it currently stood) and then you’ll be furthest away from the wall that separates you. Plus, you’ll be facing the bathroom so you won’t get lost at night when you have to go. Look, from this view, you can even see your night light!”  I vivaciously gesticulated my plan from across his bedroom. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, and certainly not the most efficient, but it was the best I could do in 28 minutes.

Dad stood peacefully to my opposite across the room. I sensed his attempt to follow my convoluted logic and respond accordingly, but the best he could do was smile half heartedly, uncertain as to what to do next. I doubt he fully comprehended my plan, but as usual he went along. I often wondered if it was the meds or the Alzheimer’s that kept him so compliant, but these days no matter how uncertain he was of anything, his default response was always “OK.”

“Ok honey, that sounds great.”
He continued to stand there, staring at the bed, a subliminal attempt to lend a hand.  I’m sure he wanted to help, he just didn’t know how.
“It’s fine dad, just go in the other room, I can move it myself.”
He briefly drifted out of his trance, said, “OK,” and wandered into the living room.

It seemed like an easy enough task.  His bed was small beneath the disheveled sheets.  Just a thin narrow mattress, box spring, frame and wheels. He had no headboard, no footboard, no extra padding to comfort him. Just an old, thin mattress and rickety box springs, basic and spartan. The littleness of it made me sad. When I was a child I remember my dad’s bed being gigantic, a King size. But it never was, it was always a full. The only thing that changed about his bed since then was my perspective, and looking at it now, it seemed so feeble and lonely. A few years back I gave my father a set of luxury sheets, down pillows and a high-thread count duvet. But he never took it out of the package. He considered it too nice to sleep on.  And lying before me now was the bed he laid on for the past 25 years—Just an old mattress and box springs with a set of low thread-count sheets on wheels. It killed me that throughout his whole life, my father never allowed himself to feel comforted, not even in sleeping.

I grabbed the left corner of his mattress and began turning the bed clockwise. Then I repeated the same with the right. My plan was to maneuver his bed into a 90-degree angle then shove it into the opposite corner of the room. I had 26 minutes to complete my mission. But as I reached 45 degrees I noticed something was wrong. The left side of the bed was no longer moving. I shoved harder and felt an unrelenting pull on the carpet. Something was stuck, hard. I peered underneath to find one of the wheels was completely missing from the frame. Dad had actually been sleeping on a lopsided bed for God knows how long and never knew the wiser. I glanced at my watch, 19 minutes and counting….

Inch by painstaking inch I tried twisting and turning each corner but without the forth wheel missing from the frame this was a mere impossibility. I began to sweat. The metal continued to grind further into the thickness of the carpet. Suddenly something gave and half of his bed came flying two feet out from under me. The frame slid completely off-track and was now totally unhinged; the front and back portions of his bed fully separated. God damn it, I cursed under my breath, taking care he wouldn’t hear me in the next room. I could feel my blouse sticking to my back.
12 minutes.

I dropped half the bed and reached to open his window for relief--Nothing. I pulled the metal lip of the window harder this time, irritation building with every bead of perspiration that dripped from my forehead onto the clamped sill. Locked. Of course. GOD DAMN IT! Some sort of senior-proofing fixture had been installed to keep disgruntled residents from hurling themselves out the window, which was a thought I was seriously considering at the time.

Air conditioner. I fiddled with the digital display, pressing the down arrow in a mad frenzy with no luck. It was frozen at 78 degrees.  I tried unplugging it then plugging it back in. I slammed the display pad with my sweaty fist. Nothing. WHAT THE HELL? If I couldn’t figure this stupid thing out, how the hell could my dad? My blouse was soaked, my hands were slippery, and my watch kept ticking. SHIT! I’m totally not going to make it...
8 minutes.

I looked behind me at my father’s broken bed, cursing myself for even going there. He probably doesn’t even remember that people even live next door, and I’ve broken his poor little bed and messed up his room--His un-matching sheets now strewn across the floor, the skinny mattress bending at the center. It looked like an earthquake hit and it was all my fault. I was supposed to make it better and I made it worse and to top it off, I had to leave him. I had to fly back to New York in less than 6 minutes and leave him with his messy broken life.

I could feel the guilt descending like a storm cloud on, then the tears, no; he cannot see me like this. Why the hell did I blow off Walgreens? All of this could have been avoided had I just picked up the nature sounds alarm clock.

But I didn’t. And now I only have 5 minutes to clean up the ridiculous mess I created, and do right by dad. I had to cross this one last thing off the list.  With one final surge I lifted the mattress with one arm and strained to connect the metal fame with the other. It was a ludicrous, senseless attempt.  Within two seconds I was sitting on the floor: defeated. Bed:  in shambles. “SHIT!” I said too loudly this time. I was as broken as his bed--Beatened, flattened. I’d lost it. Despite my valiant attempt to stifle the sobs as the tears came streaming, I heard his voice beckoning…

“Honey?”
My dad was in the doorway. I can only imagine his alarm as he surveyed his disassembled bedroom. I didn’t answer. I sat on the floor with my back to him, frozen. He couldn’t see me breakdown like this. This was a taboo moment. He could never know that anything I did for him hurt me. He could never know things were tiring or burdensome or heart wrenching like this. He was supposed to let me take care of things like a good daughter would; he was never supposed to know this was killing me.

“Honey?” He asked louder this time, his voice thick with concern, which made me cry even harder. 
"It’s OK dad," I said, trying my best to sound normal, "I’m just sort of stressed out right now and the bed is a litter heavier than I thought it would be but…it’s OK. Really. I can take care of it just…go back in the other room, OK?”

But he didn’t say OK this time.

“Honey? Are you hurt?”
It was as if he didn’t hear a word I said…He started towards me.

“No dad. It’s OK. SERIOUSLY.” I said louder this time. As if the volume of my voice would stop him. But it was too late and he was directly behind me, hand on my shoulder, much too close for me to stave him off words, no matter how loud or seemingly authoritative.

I had no choice. I had to look up, to face him in all my broken-ness, bleary eyed and defeated, like a little girl who fell off her bike and skinned her knee.
I turned around to his embrace and lost control, the tears now coming hard and fast. We were both crying now and for a fleeting moment I succumbed to being his little girl again, allowing him to comfort and protect me one last time.
“Honey...I’m sorry your hurt,” he said--And I was. I was more hurt than I had ever been but not in a physical way.<br>

It was the first time I’d seen my father cry. Thankfully, he was convinced I’d somehow injured myself while moving his bed, and his attempts to soothe me were just the same as if I’d had fallen off my bike and skinned my knee. My sadness however, was inspired for an entirely different reason. My sadness for him was far more permanent. We stood there crying in his broken bedroom for what seemed like an eternity. I held onto him tightly and sobbed in his ear, “Dad I’m so sorry,” I said between sobs. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

“It’s OK honey...” He repeated between sobs, “...It’s OK.”

It was at that point our roles reversed. Suddenly I was the parent and he was the child and we cried because we didn’t want to let go of the relationship as it was, and as it had been for the past 34 years.

I missed my plane that night. I never told my father, I just checked into the Marriott down the street and collapsed. I sat the anonymity of the hotel room and broke down where no one could see. I pondered that taboo moment when my father caught me crying, totally disarmed and childlike. I played the scene over and over in my mind, the two of us hugging and crying, clinging to that delicate bond we shared as father and daughter--So unready to let go.

Our roles were inevitably reversing and neither of us could halt the progression. We said our goodbyes that night. The exchange was a final farewell to the familial roles we once knew. It was the most melancholy yet poignant milestone we’d ever shared.

The next morning my mother called, wondering if I was all right.
Unaware of how much she knew, I played dumb: “What do you mean?”

"Your father told me you were hurt. He said you pulled a muscle trying to move his bed last night, and you left in a lot of pain….”

I exhaled. Thank God that’s how he remembers it. Thank God his Alzheimer’s had erased the painful truth of what really happened that night.  For the first time, I realized that through the sadness of the situation, there were moments of relief such as this. That Alzheimer’s had this unique was of forgiving and returning the mind back to innocence,  wiping it clear of the pain--A most unusual consolation prize.

I realized that day; my father’s disease could be dealt with in two ways. One way, the way I had been dealing for the past two years, was to dwell on the problems, to the tasks at hand, to the quick fixes, and the chores and the attempts to incessantly aid the symptoms and handicaps--The things to do lists are made of. I thought if I could somehow make dad’s life easier, it would relieve me of some of the guilt.

But the chores never end, and the lists just see to multiply. There is never enough that can be “done” to cater to the handicaps. More often than not, those multiplying problems tend to weigh most heavily on the minds of the caregiver.

After that day I learned to view the time I spent with my father in a different light. To weigh our moments together based more upon quality rather than quantity. This was very difficult for me at first.  At the beginning, I didn’t want to view my father in a reversed role. Maybe, I secretly wished he would remain dad, just as he always had, but with a few handicaps--With things that could be fixed.  But after a while, I began to understand the lists will just keep growing, and there will always be one more thing to cross off in not enough time to do so--Life is far too short to keep up.

It takes courage to face the truth and accept dad as he is, rather than as someone he used to be, but with caveats. Only after I acknowledged Dad’s PCA completely, with all of its misgivings, did I learned to relax and enjoy my time with him not as much in the doing, but in the being.