Here we are, back at the nursing home: I begin the ascent to the third floor with a pit-stop at the rehab department. I am looking for someone from the speech department and share my alarm at the recent observation that Robert’s frequency and quality of responses are waning. I share my view with a combination of realization and didactic condescension as this is “my field” of expertise and what could these young people know? I approach with sadness, I approach with urgency and I approach with questions. I am told I will get a call-back. As usual I don’t get one. This place is negligent about call-backs, but I remain the squeaky wheel.

Insurance mandates that a person can receive services if it is proven that they will benefit. The services end after a specific number of treatments or if it is noted that no benefit continues to be obtained. Whatever. I wait for an elevator for what seems to be an eternity and when the doors open, out come wagons of trays of food and refuse and meals and cans and napkins to be dispersed into some kind of disposal oblivion.

I always enter Robert’s room with trepidation. I never know what I will find, or if the guy in the next bed will have his feet hanging out of the covers; from my view, they are disembodied. A curtain separates us. The room is semi-dark most of the time. The guy by the window doesn’t seem to like sun. He is the guy who keeps passing Robert’s bed in his wheelchair on the way to the bathroom which is right next to Robert’s bed, again separated from view by a curtain. Robert tracks him visually. You can’t miss him. If you don’t see him you can hear him grunting along, the same sound, over and over like a repeated foreign word that makes no sense. I wonder what Robert thinks.

During this visit I decided not to ask questions, not to talk so much, not to cause too much pressure that can’t be dispelled by words. I play a Mahler symphony on youtube. My phone is propped on the wheelie table by the bed and Robert watches intently. I pick up The New York Post which was left for him on the same table and likely never read as he makes no movement from where he was placed. Like an item. He is trapped in his body. As I thumb through this rag of a paper, Robert looks up, briefly and then goes back to the concert.

When I arrived that day, I asked if he knew who I was. He said my name, clearly in two distinct syllables. Occasionally he answered simple questions with a yes or no, or remained silent, which is the new norm. It is that waning of response that bothers me, in addition, it is the NO response when I ask if he remembers something or someone. But on this visit his voice was stronger.

I just got off a FaceTime call which had to be short as I had an appointment. I walked around the house showing Robert his music collection, the furniture he built. I tried to jog his memory with names but there was no indication of familiarity. I blabbed on and on and received a couple of clear responses to some simple questions. I actually applauded twice and told him I was so happy he answered. Yes. No. From the man who never stopped talking.

And then I had to end the call.

But let me bring you back to the other day when I was there. It was a day of virtual silence except for the music and the rustling of the newspaper. It was a day that I got newspaper ink on my hands. It was a day of crying for about ten minutes behind my mask. It was a day when I realized that something I had pointed out to an aide had been cleaned up from the wall. It was a day of bright sun and cold air and the inability to accept change that has been so drastic and unfathomable that it still throws me off guard.

Thrown off guard.

I decided that for the first time I would do something I had never done before. You see, when you no longer know a person you tend to shrink back in partial disbelief, revulsion, and fear. Seeing a person in this state reminds one of their own mortality: Life can change in a nanosecond. Life can end in a flash . . .

So I decided.

I said goodbye, a word which he could not repeat, and I moved forward and toward him, into his personal space, the space occupied by the past and by happier days. I moved in for a kiss. And he kissed me on the mouth.

Lips to lips, separated by a blue, paper mask.

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

The previous post is here

The next post is here