February 26

 

Okay, two of you guessed the song, which is Sweet Home Alabama. Congratulations to Sewell and Kim, who will be receiving an abundance of crap fine prizes from my home. If you've never sung SHA in front of a crowd, I suggest and recommend it wholeheartedly. But, before you launch into it, I must insist you yell out "This one's for you, Dana!" and pour a beverage onto the floor. It seems fair. I've no idea why I can sing the song so well, it's a total mystery. All I know is that when you put a mic in my hand and the first beats play (you know. "duh-duh DUNA duh duh DUNA!") I go into this special place a girl from Brooklyn living in New England shouldn't ever have reason to go. I actually get a little irritated when I hear the song being used in the KFC commercial (which I didn't use as a hint, because that would have made it too easy). I can't help it, maybe I'm a southern girl at the core.

 

Yesterday, I picked up my grandmother and we went off to visit Angelo and take him out to lunch. The last time I'd seen him, he was doing pretty well. On days when he's "pretty well", he's lucid and can carry on a conversation, however muddled. Yesterday, when we arrived, he saw us after a few seconds. We saw him first, though. He was deep in a conversation with a woman who lives in his section and as far as I know, wanders the halls all day back and forth begging to be taken home. I'm not ever sure whether she means home, her room, or home, whatever the memory is of wherever she used to live. She seems too far gone to remember her real home, but I don't know. I have mostly gotten used to seeing Angelo in this place. I mean, we get used to what we have to get used to and it's okay with me for the most part, because I know he isn't in any pain and he's not sad. It hurts me when it comes time to drop him off and he asks where we're going next and whether or not I'm bringing him home. Again, I have no idea whether he means home back to his room in the place or home back to their condo. I know he has memories of the condo because he speaks of it semi-often. He complains that he has no money and that people are taking his things. He has no real concept of what is actually happening to him and what he's dreaming. My grandmother walked him in yesterday and I waited in the car because there were no parking spaces. As she was leaving, one of the workers chased after her and asked "How long did you have him home with you, this way?" When my grandmother replied "two years", the woman shook her head and said "he is awake for the better part of 24 hours every day. He doesn't sleep at night, he just wanders around", which is exactly what he did at home, but with the hidden dangers of stairs and him just walking out the door or burning the house down.

My grandmother lacks patience for him, which is understandable, but also infuriating. For the longest time she treated his condition (senile dementia, Parkinson's disease and Lewy Bodie dementia) as something he could snap out of if he really wanted to. On his good days, she asks "Maybe he's well enough for me to take home". It's devastating to know that he will never see his condo again. On the day, two years ago, when my grandmother called me and mentioned that he wasn't making any sense at all and she was afraid, I knew that it was time to take him to the hospital and for some decisions to be made. I also knew that I could not be the one to make those decisions. I knew that once he was checked into the hospital he would never go home again. Not that he was going to die, of course, but that what was happening in his brain was too far advanced for any of us to deal with on our own. My mother came up and they drove him off to the hospital. There was little wrong with him, physically, other than the normal things we saw going on. They admitted him after my boss called whoever was in charge of the ER that day and explained the story. They did test after test for anything to keep him there, and finally they found something.

Anyhow, that was a long time ago and we've all settled into our lives the way they are. I know my grandmother is lonely and sad and guilty. I know she also knows that she did the right thing, but that doesn't help when he asks why he's being punished or how much he hates where he is.

 

 

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