I wrote “DAD” in the white sand of Destin, hoping to use the photo for a card for my father who was recuperating from a fall in a rehab hospital. But the turquoise water kept creeping up, erasing the letters before I could focus and take the shot. It was futile—the waves beat me with every attempt.
I stood upright, threw away the stick and contemplated my life. The beauty of the beach did not restore equilibrium to my soul as it usually did. A refresh—a reboot, if you will—was desperately needed, but elusive. Life was hard and no amount of standing on the shore would change things.
I was resigned to the fact that my father’s almost 90-year-old-body was failing, but I wasn’t prepared for his mind to do the same.
My dad, Lee DuBois, was articulate—a storyteller—weaving familiar tales from the past or simple events of the morning. As a family joke, we’d ask, “Have I ever told you about the time I almost lost Dwight?” or “When I sleep-walked as a child and ended up in the barn?” or “My initiation to the South and its poisonous snakes?” He told these stories hundreds of times, but to him they were new with each retelling. When I visited my parents in their retirement community, he’d greet me by saying, “I’ve had quite a morning,” finishing with play-by-play anecdotes.
Once at a doctor’s appointment, Dad told the physician he had a sure-fire sleep method, much better than counting sheep. “Oh?” said Dr. Meadows, playing right into his hand. Dad recounted how, as a child, he wished he could fly like a bird. He vowed he’d become a pilot one day and began lessons in his forties only to be forced to quit due to a grand mal seizure. Now as he lay in bed each night, he visualized walking through a field with tall grass blowing in the warm summer wind. He approached a red Cessna Skyhawk, got into the pilot’s seat, fastened his seatbelt and started the engine. As the small craft cleared the tarmac and rose into the clouds, he looked over the landscape only to be asleep within seconds. “Works every time,” he boasted.
He read voraciously, loving classic detective stories, “shoot’em ups” and the daily news. The older he became, he listened to broadcasts on an hourly basis. So much coverage was depressing to me; to him it was vital, history in the making. Often, he told me about national or world events before I heard them elsewhere. Having an extensive vocabulary, he once said it was propitious that I had come. I paused and asked him to define the word, which he did correctly.
Every Saturday for decades he wrote a weekly email column called Saturday Chatter to our extended family. He reported on his and Mom’s activities as well as events in the lives of his four children, grandchildren, our cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who comprised the readership. He kept the family—stretching from New York to California— connected. In his eighties, he learned to attach photos to the messages. He asked others to send him details about their lives to add to the column, but eventually got the facts mixed up. Although weather apps gave up-to-the-minute information, he was our personal weatherman reporting on lack of rain, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. One time I spat, “What city are you living in?” when he reported our weather so inaccurately.
Gradually he began to write the same things over and over each week and to use wrong names for family members. He adamantly declared he never repeated himself even though he stated, “Old age ain’t for sissies” in each newsletter. He did realize names were beginning to elude him. As a professional sales trainer, he knew the name of every student in his multiple classes. But now he couldn’t remember our son-in-law’s name correctly.
Our immediate family gently encouraged him to retire from the Chatter. When he suggested stopping to his readers, so many people pled with him to continue that he felt he couldn’t quit. Confidentially, I sent out an email asking everyone to please thank him for writing the column for so long and to give him permission to stop. They had no idea how many hours he anguished over the writing and sending.
In their independent living apartment, Dad took great pride in helping my mother with daily tasks that got harder for her every year. Picking up things from the floor. Loading the dishwasher. Vacuuming. Bringing her breakfast. Mom said she retired from her job like he retired from his. But this created a problem—someone still had to do the necessary things. They had to eat and someone had to go to the store. He picked up the slack willingly, grateful that he was around to help.
My siblings and I noticed the beginnings of forgetfulness and confusion which increased daily. He asked the same questions repeatedly and wrote notes to himself so he wouldn’t forget. Then he forgot he’d written the notes and write them again. His computer acted up, “Why do they have to go and make things ‘better’ when all they do is make things harder?” (Periodic updates.) His keyboard wouldn’t work. (It worked fine.) The pills I ordered hadn’t come. (They were under his sink.)
For years he told me he dreaded the day we took away the car keys. When the time came, something told me he needed to make the decision instead of us demanding it. When we asked him to stop driving or to stay within a small radius from their home, he agreed the next day it was probably time. He handed me the keys—and one more piece of independence.
On a routine visit, Dad complained about his memory loss to his doctor who asked three questions: What year is it? Who is president? What city are we in? To my shock, Dad struggled to answer correctly. A dreaded word was spoken quietly: dementia. I told the doctor later he asked the wrong question; if he’d asked what happened in the Republican primary the night before, Dad could have accurately talked for twenty minutes.
In years past, Dad fell eight times without being injured seriously. I told him he was a cat with nine lives, knowing that one time would be all it took. Then he fell face-forward on cement while taking his prescribed half-hour walk. He broke his nose and fractured his dominant right arm in two places.
In six weeks, a gathering was planned with everyone on the Saturday Chatter list. Family was coming from around the country to celebrate Dad’s 90th birthday and his and Mom’s 70th anniversary on June 7th. When he fell, I moaned, “Why now? Right before the party?” I feared it would have to be cancelled—I couldn’t reconcile the timing.
In the hospital, Dad seemed to be himself. He declared his fall a deplorable turn of events and deemed me the angel of the family for my care. He thanked the nursing staff and acted like the gentlemen we knew him to be.
Hearing was a constant problem, and comprehending what was spoken was even worse. Probably legally deaf, he was only able to converse by using a hearing aid with a lariat receiver worn around his neck and lapel mics for others to speak into. When more than two people were in the room talking, he was lost. He would frantically look from one to the other and exclaim, “It’s terrible not to hear others talking about things concerning you!” I’d soothe him and tell him it wasn’t necessary for him to hear it all—I’d explain everything when the doctor left.
In the twenty years of taking over my parents medical care, I felt I should’ve been awarded an honorary degree.
Then came rehab hospital. Day after day, he became more confused and agitated. They diagnosed stage 4 of dementia. He’d complain that his phone was broken. (He was using the remote.) He’d ask for something and poof! They’d disappear. (They were simply going to do his bidding.) This is a hospital? No one cares what you want. (Probably because he kept hitting the nurse’s button when he tried to turn the TV on and off.)
After my brother and I left the rehab hospital the first night, we treated ourselves to dinner out. With the sun going down on the horizon, we shared a bottle of wine to soothe our souls. While taking the first sip, I received a call from the hospital. I answered to hear Dad’s agitated voice, “Marjean, they brought me iced tea for dinner and I WANT COFFEE!” I told him to tell the nurses and hung up. Incredulous, I refused to answer the second call.
This was not going to be easy.
On entry, the therapists asked Dad to set a goal for recovery. “Get well for the big party!” was the immediate answer. The timing was perfect after all. He had something to live for, something to get home for. All the exercises and hard work had a purpose.
But his mind grew increasingly worse. He didn’t remember visitors coming. He didn’t know his old neighbor, Barry—one of his favorites who came to help him with lunch one day. After my daily visit, he’d call a few hours later and say, “Marjean, are you coming? No one has been here, and I’ve been waiting all day!” I’d show up the next day and he’d blurt out with relief, “FINALLY, someone to talk to.” He talked to his therapists and nurses all day, but that was never enough.
He learned how to walk with his right arm in a sling and his left hand on the walker exclaiming, “Is this really me? Can this be me who can’t walk?” As he practiced walking to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet, he’d shake his head and marvel that he had to practice such a thing. The physical therapist remarked that his humor was so dry it took her a little while to get used to him. I was grateful for medical personnel who cared and were able to get past the gruffness.
I desperately needed a break. My husband Ricky and I escaped to the beach for a few days while my sister Dalene came to care for Dad. On my final walk on the shore, he called to ask, “Can you come and GET ME OUT OF THIS PLACE?” I tried to tell him he’d be out the next day, but he couldn’t hear me. He handed the phone to a nearby nurse, and I asked her to keep repeating: one more day, one more night, and you’re going home.
I hoped the return to familiar surroundings and reuniting with his bride of 70 years would rekindle the man who was slowly slipping away from us, leaving a frightened child-like man in his place.
I tried once again to catch the Father’s Day shot in the sand, simply to have it disappear. I realized those early photos reflected with great clarity what was happening to Dad. The man he had been for 90 years was slowly being erased, one wave at a time. Raw grief freed my tears, which dropped into the unrelenting sea.
I never got to give him the card. He was gone two later weeks due to a sudden pulmonary embolism, eleven days before his big party.
We were all devastated.
Since plane reservations were already made, the extended family chose to gather on June 7th in Birmingham anyway. But his presence, and his stories, were a painful omission. At the birthday/anniversary dinner, we each took up his mantle and told our own stories about him, remembering. “Did I ever tell you about the time…?”
