After about a two month hiatus, Evan and I visited Robert. The CDC rules in effect, which facilities are driven by, mandates a quick Covid test, so, for about twenty minutes, until we figured out the logistics as every test is a bit different, we stood in a drafty entryway with our tests propped up on a rolling platform, and helped a Cambodian lady nearby, follow the directions.

And then, upstairs with the social worker, whom we bumped into. Now to the third floor.

“Robert, Robert there are some people here to see you!”

The room was on the darkside, and this time, unlike previously, there were three other men. One bed was empty. Everyone had been moved around like chess pieces, shuffled, reconfigured by issue, by ailment, by personality, because of Covid, and the need to isolate patients in waves. Covid swept through the facility for the second time and for the second time it did Robert in. Not only because he is physically affected, but the emotional isolation is a huge factor, and with so many staff members testing positive, filling in for one another, there was short-staffing.

“Robert, look who’s here!”

But there was no response. No movement, no validation.

So, now I am calling him. His back is to me. No movement. “Rob, it’s me, Snooks!” A face peeks out from under the curtain wall across the room. I walk to the other side of the bed and as I pull the curtain between beds to create the illusion of privacy, the man in the next bed waves and protests in some kind of babble. I back off. I turn my back and face Robert.

Now, he can see me. Now Evan is behind him and says, “Hi, Dad!” We are still in masks and the only way he can recognize us is by voice.

But, there is no response. Robert stares. He is occasionally fixed on the television of the guy in the next bed, looking at it over my shoulder. I flash Evan a look, my eyes a bit wild, like what the hell?

 

I begin the monologue which fills in time, which tries to connect with him, my husband of almost forty-six years, this emaciated stranger who, once, never stopped talking. I go on, I go on and on. Evan interjects. Robert makes no comment, he listens with his eyes glued to mine.

There is no phone on the nightstand, not that he would answer it. I have taken his old flip phone home months ago. It will soon be extinct, according to Verizon, because it is 3G. Obsolete. As obsolete as its owner. Verizon wants everyone to upgrade their service, their phones, to stay connected.

But I have no one to connect to at the other end. I have changed his outgoing message after saving it to a recording. “Please don’t leave a message for Robert, he cannot respond. Call Susan on the home phone.”

I take Robert’s hand. He squeezes it and I am taken aback by the strength of a man who may now be under eighty pounds. They’ve stopped weighing him, it’s too stressful. He’d have to be lifted by a machine.

I say, “Wow! Are you ever strong! What a grip!” He squeezes even harder, and at the same time he clenches his teeth and I am not sure if he is smiling, or joking, or grimacing with that act. The first thing that came to my mind was that here’s a kid, a child who is showing his parent what he can do, how strong he is, who knows what is going on. Like, “Look at me!” “Watch me do this!”

In that moment I can hear him, his nonverbal words.

Then, Evan makes a comment. Something about an upcoming trip, and a postal thing, the common ground of their hobby. Something to find a trigger to stimulate a response.

Robert says, “learned something new.”

There’s a small carton of a protein drink by the bed and I offer it to him. I have never seen him take a drink by himself. Once I saw him holding the container and drinking. Someone would have to have put it in his hand. But, I hold it for him and he is drinking until every drop is dragged up the straw. He finished the whole thing.

“His appetite is good,” they tell me. Prior, he was not eating much. Now, all of a sudden, his body is trying to stay alive, he is trying to stay alive. He is squeezing my hand for dear life. When he lets go he holds on to the the bed rail.

It’s over a half hour and I begin to disengage. “Say goodby, Evan I love you.”

A child, no matter how old has to her that.

He says it.

I am aware of the soft blue blanket on his bed that moved upstairs with him from the second floor. I think some volunteers gave it to him for Christmas. I notice how clean it is, how clean he is and how he is shaven.

I am aware of an aide bringing back the guy from the bed diagonally across, from the bathroom. The one who was peering out from under the curtain. Over and over he says, “Sank you, sank you, sank you…”, to the aide.”You’re welcome she says,” a few times.

With every “sank you,” I sink.

The room across the hall has two women in it; it is bright and sunny, the curtains fully open. It is so sun-filled the view almost makes me squint. From within this men’s room of darkness, where light is blocked out as well as all the secrets of the Universe, my question is simple: why is this happening?

Someone in a wheelchair gets pushed past the door.

Evan says to Robert, “Say goodbye, Snooks.”

And Robert does.

 

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

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