Memorial Day
May 30, 2022

It is a day of gratitude, of looking back, of memorializing.

This day, forty-six years ago, Robert and I married. It was the second marriage for each of us: I was a widow, yes, at age twenty-six. He was divorced. It just happened that the Universe threw us together and there we were embarking on a new life, together. It turned out to be a life well-lived, filled with all New York City could offer. Filled with all the world could offer. Travel, exploration, good food, always good food. A great son. It went well for the most part, but, know it was vastly imperfect and not at all without issues. However, we were glued by common ground, in likes, in affinities, in creating, in learning.

So, on May 30, 1976 we wed. On Memorial Day in the year of the 200th anniversary of our country. That July 4, we watched big ships sail down the Hudson River from a friend’s balcony in New Jersey. We were always doing and going. Always. Our life sailed on.

I think on some molecular level Robert knew that his busy, always-rushing life would eventually reach an awaiting finish line that would grab him and take him away: He began to morph into a person whom I occasionally didn’t recognize, physically, behaviorally. There were soft signs I never faced until the shock of it all hit me. His brain was changing. His behavior could be odd. He expressed ideations that were unlike his usual strong self. Paranoia? Victimization? Please, there was a lot more, but I can’t share it. It is far too personal, too painful. By the time he entered his late 60s it was obvious that there was something happening, beginning its journey into decline.

Dementia goes beyond the definition of forgetfulness that people talk of, it is a global brain change that manifests physically and mentally.  His Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) was said to be a treatable form of dementia. A brain shunt was supposed to prevent him from losing his balance and falling. It did for a while, things were a bit better, but it is about twelve years that the odd period began to descend, and six years since the shunt, and about four years since the shunt appeared to not the job that it set out to do: remove the pressure of cerebrospinal fluid that was pressing on various cortexes of the brain, and keeping him normal.

By the end of 2020, Robert was in severe decline. He tried to maintain his independence:  He insisted on driving. He used a cane, then a rollator, he needed a wheelchair, The time was complicated by the months of the Coronavirus; was he losing mobility because we were always in the house? Then, a fall and head injury the morning before his seventy-fourth birthday put him in the hospital. Things were complicated by bed shortages, triages in nursing homes where he got Covid (twice). All of this began the descent. A continual decline that was frightening to observe. I believe that the first round of Covid did him in. He has not been home in a year and a half. He will not be coming home, anniversary or not.

In the process of decline, of the shedding of creative brilliance, of the losing of high level intelligence, of the fading of  motor coordinations and functions and  control of bodily functions, of the absconding of recent memory, there is, the losing of the ego: that part of the brain that socializes modern man, that makes so many think they are holier than thou, that gives us the me-me-me factor, and that is the mediator of the id, the superego and reality.

And in that peeling away of all of that, there is a return to the pure form of a self, of the spirit: There is no longer a need to rush, to do, to go, to be right, to work, to create, to be loved. That all fades away. Needs become purely primal.  This dying of the ego has left me with the empty cocoon of a person whom I have known for half a century, who is now unrecognizable, who remains in bed, drifting off into whatever land he chooses. Within that cracked open silky shell that held him there are memories rattling around and some of his ability to dig deep within and retrieve his mental movies; his ability to respond and connect are still there.

But then there are times when this is all a lie.

I could easily shirk, and I might, my visitation today, maybe I’ll go tomorrow or another day, it might be much easier on me; It is too raw a day and the second of anniversaries with him in the nursing home. I can blame it on last week’s Covid cases in the facility. Or anything I wish. In the background, I am always making mental plans: I figured I’d buy a little cake, I’d try to figure out what I can say or discuss in my monologue, I would bring a folder of memories assembled from the basement that my son and I are trying to clean out … travel memories appear in odd places. Napkins from places we ate in on European trips: Montenucci’s in Orvieto, Italy, where Simonetta, daughter of Michelangeli the master woodcarver whose works I took home or sent home, took us for coffee. The Montenucci Caffè.

I found The Circle Line photo. The Circle Line, is a 3-hour boat ride around New York City

I visualize myself in that visit with the roommate behind the curtain. The man who never speaks just waves me away.
I replay how I swallow and suppress the need to cry behind my mask but it doesn’t always work.

On May 30, 1976 we picked up a multi-tiered wedding cake from Lorabie Bakers on Kissena Boulevard. We were told that the best way to transport it would be to put it in the tire well, so the tire had been removed and the cake was put into the abyss in the trunk of the blue Valiant and was seamlessly transported to Robert’s folks’ home where the wedding was held. His father counted the meatballs from the caterer, The Squire Restaurant, and found they were short: He got on the phone and yelled. The ceremony was outside, my best friend, Theresa, was a chuppah-holder, about eighty-five people celebrated inside and outside of the house, Michal played the baby grand and sang. People were so happy for me, I was the widow who survived great challenges in her twenties who had found another partner, incredibly quickly, a very different partner, a better partner.

I wore a dress from Fred Leighton, he wore the suit he bought for the job interview to become a city planner. He ended up teaching and it was his life’s passion.

At that time, still in my twenties, I could never imagine the present days, in these latter decades. I could never imagine aging, illnesses, losses. I believe that is how were designed: to be young and feckless and to not think about all the possibilities of tragedy or we’d never be brave enough to forge ahead in life.

So, on this day, I cannot, I won’t imagine what is coming in the future. I can only give myself permission to revisit what has been. Because after all, it is Memorial Day.

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

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