I walked into Robert’s room with tote bags of must-haves in recognition of his birthday. Evan was waiting for a parking spot. I worked out the details over days on a sheet of paper: Bring the greeting cards a few people sent, bring our card, bring a little cake, bring something for the staff. Bring, carry, mask, stuff. I am trying to reconstruct what happened within a forty-five minute time frame a few days ago.

So, here’s this guy in bed. He is my husband of forty-five years.

“Hi, Rob!” Hi, Susie!

“Happy Birthday!” It’s my birthday?

“Yes, you are seventy-five!” I am?

I move the photo of him, and of myself with Evan (as a baby) from above and behind his bed the front of the room and put them on a little cork rail under the television so he could see them. “This is you,” I said, holding up the photo of him from ten years ago before all of this deterioration, this inconceivable change that blindsided me. Let him imagine that he still looks like that: healthy, strong, full of vigor.

I handed him a card. “This is from cousin Shirley.” He took the card. I told him to hold it with both hands; he did. I told him to read it. He did. Then he read the interior. I paraphrased.

Repeat process for his sister’s card.

Repeat process for Evan’s and my card.

I tacked the cards to that cork strip near the photos.

I flagged down Felicia, from “recreation.” “He didn’t know it was his birthday,” I said.

“Robert! I was in this morning, remember, singing happy birthday to you!” She sang it again with passion. “Let me go down and get him a balloon!” She returned shortly and we anchored it to the front of the room, in his field of vision, adjacent to the TV which hovers near the ceiling.

And I noticed: he was alone in the room. There was no roommate. They come and go, and thinking about the likes of the last one, it is possible that he is no longer earthbound. The bed had been stripped bare, down to the blue vinyl covered mattress. A pair of shoes under the sink were still there; a remnant that I noticed months ago. I have no idea to whom they belonged; they were as abandoned as the memories so many people in these places once had.

“I brought you cake,” I said, but let me get some water. I was directed to “the dining room” where I explained that it was my husband’s birthday, and that I didn’t know if he would be able to handle cake, may I please have some water. THIS was the room, that at the beginning of the video visits during Covid lockdown, they would triage most of the patients on the floor in. Robert would be all the way over in the corner by the window in the midst of the din of the singing Italian woman and the babbling guy next to him. Now there were just a few people. Several workers were sitting together talking.  Someone had taken Robert’s former spot in the corner. His legs were as wizened as Robert’s, sticking out of his covers. I wondered, could he too be a guy of seventy-five with this rapid aging situation. He looked, like Robert, who at this point appears to be at least fifteen years older than he really is. I got the water just as I detected that one of the occupants of this room needed a diaper change. How could anybody do this job? And yes, I was wearing a mask.

I had picked up a mini fruit tart and a one-inch-cube chocolate ganache cake. I decided to give him the chocolate, a favorite of his. The water was nearby. I brought a fork with me.

“Would you like some cake?” I said, and of course the answer was in the affirmative. So I opened the clear plastic container from Elite Pastries and began to pick off some small pieces.

I was feeding my husband.

He ate. He ate a little more. Do you want more? I asked. That’s OK he said. And he meant it. The few tiny bites ended the chocolate cake. The rest remained in the box. He refused the water.

I brought some of his magazines: The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Architectural Digest, a Playbill from a show we missed before all of this insanity, that we couldn’t get into because we couldn’t park! I included a few sections from The Times…Science, The Arts. I wondered if this were but a futile attempt to stimulate him. I have not seen him able to do anything unassisted.

And then the usual babble: what does one spew empty words about to a spouse in a nursing home? The quotidien trivia that comprise the day that the missing party would usually be privy to: two cars had bubbles in the same front left tire!

To which he said: Thank you for taking care of that.

We fiddled with the TV control that was near Robert’s hand; it had a built-in speaker. We couldn’t find one interesting show and turned it off. We would leave it next to Robert’s hand. We would leave Robert in bed, propped up to one side, in the deserted quiet of his room, a mat on each side of the bed on the floor, lest he take another tumble. He couldn’t roll and fall if he wanted to.

On the way out I saw the tray of cookies that I had left, sitting unattended on the nursing station’s counter, close to Robert’s room.

These are for you, I reminded whoever had appeared behind it. Please enjoy in honor of Robert’s birthday. One nurse told the young men at the station to wash their hands and then they could have some.

We left. We left Robert behind in a room with the little remains of the cake in the garbage, an unknown predecessor’s  abandoned shoes under the sink, and a Happy Birthday balloon affixed to wall. But before we left I asked:

Do you know how old your are?”

Seventy-five, he said.

📌The series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

The previous post is here

The next post is here