We had lunch and we went. My son, my husband’s dearest friend from second grade, and I. Am I recovered? Enough, I guess to make my way back out into society and to a nursing home, where Robert has been living for almost three years. As long as I swallow hard and make myself numb, I am OK. Until I walk into the room and see a person in a bed who I don’t recognize.

We usually visit in the late afternoon between the time the patients are being tended to and served dinner. Perhaps it is not the best time. Maybe it is better in the morning but we never seem to be able to get there early. As the social worker says, the way a patient relates often depends on the time of day.

I hadn’t been there in a while nor had I seen Robert via Facetime. The last time on video which was during the time of my pre-op testing, was a bust. I could barely get a word out of him and just played music for almost two hours before the iPad at his end collapsed.

So it had been a while. And we visitors were reminded of something: Don’t talk so much. When the visitor is compelled to keep up a running dialogue it is often out of guilt or social norms. We feel uncomfortable during periods of silence. We think we have to generate words, ask questions, engage the listener. Often, this doesn’t work and the visitor feels awkward if not pained. Robert was pretty much nonverbal. There was the occasional yes or no. Honestly, I don’t know for sure if he knew who I was. Or, for that matter, who his son or friend were. He was in a bit of a stupor, painfully thin, under a sheet.

All he did was stare.

So in my moments of discomfort, I talked and talked. I talked too much. I had a lot to say, but it didn’t help that I asked questions, like if he remembered this or that. Occasionally he had some old-man-mouth movements, this person I am married to, like he was talking or wanted to talk, but none of us are really sure. How I wish I knew what was going on in his head, how much he understood, how much he remembered, how deeply rooted his long-term memory is, if his short term memory flits and lands like butterflies and then goes off, living in the moment of nectar.

When someone stares so deeply at you, into you, it is disarming. Almost creepy. I look at this person and think that he couldn’t possibly go on like this forever: does he know? Can he step out of himself and see that he is the emaciated person in the bed who shares a room with three other long-term care patients?

I talked about trips. Our trips, years of trips woven into the woof and warp of memory. Surely he would recall this country or that moment, or that our fantasy was to retire to Orvieto, that little town northeast of Rome that we visited for days on end, two or three times. Surely he knew, surely the word would make his face light up, his eyes spark! Orvieto! on the volcanic tufa, the golden Cathedrale, the Hotel Maitani, where the staff would greet us: “Ritorno!” Our room was cento­venti­sette (127)…Where we explored and knew every corner. Where Simonetta took us to the caffè; She was a med student, her father was Michelangeli, the master wood carver who we would visit. At the end of town were the shell remnants of a stone church built in 1004. San Giovenale. Built within were high tech modern platforms and stairs:  A restaurant. We’d sit at the rose window and watch the sun fade over the highway to Rome off in the distance, the cars’ lights would form strings of flashes, so far off, like a swarm of fireflies in formation.

But, he didn’t remember Orvieto. It was the first time.

I left the room.

I fled.

I abandoned my son. I abandoned the friend from second grade. I abandoned Robert. I abandoned the memory of that perfect town. I left Robert behind, staring at his friend, their hands in a tight grip. I left my son watching. I went downstairs and got involved in a conversation with a gentleman who was visiting his ill mother. He had lost his partner the same time that I had “lost” Robert.

What is worse: to lose a partner or a memory?

📌That series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey
(becomes the husband journey)

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