September 22
I can't get enough light in this room to make my cam to work here at home, sorry.
It's been a long time, and I apologize. I thought I wanted to wait until I had something other than Angelo to talk about, but I just can't come up with what that something else might be. He was moved from the hospital, rather suddenly, last Wednesday. It was sort of a bad day for me--I was supposed to be working late that night, and hadn't really planned on visiting him at all. Anyhow, my grandmother left me a message saying that he was being moved at 2:00, and that she was going to go to the bank and then head over to the new place. (I have a name, if you really care, and want to send an inexplicable bouquet of flowers or a fruit cup basket, email me and I'll give it to you, but you have to swear not to stalk him.) At about 4:30, it started looking like I'd be able to leave work and come back later that evening, so I figured that the best thing for me to do would be to go to the new place, see how he was doing. I called, and the possibly retarded woman who answered the phone informed me that he was not there yet, that they were expecting him at any moment. I try my grandmother--not home. I call over to the hospital, and finally, they tell me that he is sitting there at the nurse's station, and they are waiting for an ambulance to show up to transport him.
At 5, I left for the place, figuring that my grandmother would be there--and most of all--that she'd been sitting there since 1:00, alone, with nothing to do and no one to talk to. I showed up, and contrary to what the place is called (A Rehabilitation Place, or some title approximation thereof), it is, by smell alone, an Old Folks Home. Gah.
Finally, they wheel Angelo in, he sees us standing there, and he salutes. That's right. He salutes. We walk over to him, and he launches into a story. Now, you know by my past family conversations that Angelo almost never makes 100 percent sense all of the time. He's never been completely with it, in terms of his mental prowess, but good lord, he is speaking but not making any sense at all. Sentences are coming out, but nothing about them is correct. He informs us that he was given many difficult tests, in that building--the building where they were buying and selling things. That people were running around all night, and that a man and a woman were doing things in his room. When I asked "What KIND of things were they doing?" He replied "Oh, you know. NOT THAT, though." About an hour later, once he was settled in, I needed to get back to work, and needed to give my gramma a ride home, so we said goodbye to him, which was horrible, and we left.
We rode back to the house in sort of stunned silence. He was much, much worse than when he was at the hospital, the day before. He had no grip on now or even then--not remembering that he'd been in a hospital or why, or when his birthday was, or what month it is now. Very basic things were gone, and both my grandmother and I were taken completely aback.
I wasn't able to visit the next day, I was in the middle of a major project at work (it happens sometimes, unfortunately), and the dealine was that night, so I knew I'd be there until very late, but I was told by my grandmother that he'd had a terrible day in a lot of ways, and I didn't really press her.
Friday, I took half a day. I took half a day so that my grandmother could stay home and take care of herself (remember: she has heart disease, and hasn't really been taking her medicine), she wanted to get her hair done. She wanted to put her feet up and relax, inasmuch as either of us have been able to relax recently. Of course, my mother and aunt (I'm not even going to get into that story. It's past, now.) are both worried, but it's just more immediate for us, being here. I am worried when I am with him, and guilty when I am not. Any free time I happen to have (and honestly, this week, almomst all of my free time has been spent either at the hospital or the rehab facility) when I'm not there, I am haunted, almost, by the idea that he's sitting in that place all alone, with no one who'll speak loudly to him and no one who'll calm him when he freaks out.
I was going to write about me being there for a freakout on Friday, one that sort of came from nowhere, violent, cursing, paranoid, furious with my grandmother, but I just don't have the energy. I am trying desperately to remain positive, but I must confess, I am feeling heartbroken. To see him so confused and, even worse than confused, so very frail, in this place filled with sad, broken people when three weeks ago, he was--not vital, perhaps not hale and hearty, but certainly THERE. Friday, I sat outside with him, after his rageful episode, holding hands talking about the things we would do when he got out. I didn't remind him that not an hour before, he'd said "This is the end for me, you know", and he didn't say it again.
I was going to write about the people in this place. The young ones who've had terrible accidents, the kind you don't recover from. I was going to speak of the other parents and grandparents there, the ones that don't get company, who reach out to me in the hall and call me by their children's names. The ones who have told me their lives stories in some dreamy narrative that may or may not be accurate, of people who may exist only in their heads. I am begged for medicine, asked to be taken away, brought outside, put to bed. I am given several slow, heartwrenching thumbs ups from a early middle aged man with astonishingly blue eyes who seems only to be able to communicate by pointing, slowly, at a piece of paper with the alphabet printed in large, careful print, on his lap. A man plays the harmonica, yet can not remember how to walk or eat or what his wife's name is.
Of these people, I try and see how my grandfather fits in to the picture. I try and imagine this being the rest of his life. I try and figure out how the nurses see him. I explain as best as I can to whoever will listen that he is NOT like the other patients. That two weeks ago, I walked around the North Haven fair with him, petting sheep and talking. That he will regain control and regain memory and we will be able to pack up his stuff and all walk out as a family, never to see any of these people again, never to have to leave him sitting in the hall, in a wheelchair, hurrying off to the elevator so he can't see me cry; big stupid tears of guilt and sorrow for how things are right now and how they might well be forever and how I would do anything in my power, give anything to make it not be so, when I know perfectly well that all anyone can do is wait and hope and give it time.
Walking away from my grandfather in an old folks home, leaving him between the man who can no longer speak and the woman who sits, trembling and jerking from years of stroke after stroke, with a confused, sad smile on his face and my promise to him that I will be back tomorrow, the day after that, and all the days after that, for as long as it takes is wearing me down, is chipping me away. When I explain to him again and again and again that I can not just pack up his clothes, that I can not bring him with me when I go home, when I tell him that he is not well enough to go home, I don't know that I have a place for it in me, and I'm deeply frightened that I may need to find that place very soon.
the other day - home - email - tomorrow