The Long-Term Care Truth About Flying

"I wouldn't fly with you," said Romeo.

"What?"

"If you were piloting an airplane, I wouldn't fly with you."

We were reading about small planes, about how a non-pilot wife landed a plane when her pilot husband became incapacitated. A flight instructor talked her down safely, giving her instructions and encouragement the entire time.

"Romeo, if I had a pilot's license, you wouldn't fly with me?"

"No."

"Why not? I think I'd be an awesome pilot."

Romeo rolls his eyes and turns away.

"I never told you this because it never came up," I said. "But at one point in my life I wanted to learn how to fly."

"What happened?"

"Never got around to it. Just like I never got around to learning how to fence. At least not yet."

"Fence?"

"Yep, fencing. You know -- beat, lunge, perry. All for one and one for all."

"Oh."

"So why wouldn't you fly with me? I'm an excellent driver."

"Driving isn't flying."

"Well, no," I agreed.

"In an airplane there's no road."

It took me a few minutes to stop laughing, and when I did: "That should make it easier to fly."

"No, no, no." Romeo was frustrated. He wasn't able to articulate his thoughts. I still don't know why he wouldn't fly with me. Perhaps if I bring up the subject in a few days he won't remember the conversation and we can start again. Maybe he'll be able to tell me then. Maybe then he'll be able to find the words. But more likely, not. Ahhh, this is dementia.

Flying With Dementia

I gather Romeo into my arms, like La Pieta, the Madonna cradling her crucified son. Romeo, however, is very much alive, so we slowly lift off from the mountaintop, our eyes pointed toward the edge of the metaverse. I only need to think a direction, and we head that way.

We travel quickly, silently, effortlessly, safely. The twilight night lights of Boulder recede and give way to the night lights of the Milky Way. We watch the sun rise on the other side of the globe as it sets here. And we think, "Up, let's continue up, toward nothingness."

Soon our bodies fade, first becoming a heavy indigo fog, then a transparent violet mist, and it's no longer clear who is cradling who. Our new mist-like bodies of light blink on and off, but not simultaneously and not completely. We twinkle. We are glitter, strewn about like bird seed.

The stars, the planets, cold dark matter -- all greet us, and each lets us pass, and each catapults us faster and faster toward our destination. But there is much space to cover, and it will take a long time to get there...wherever "there" is.

Finally, far from everything, in the space between space, we are alone. With no light visible except our own twinkling energy bodies, and with only the other to see and sense and touch, we begin our slow dance. We are smoke from every campfire ever lit and flames from every forest fire that ever burned. Our energies undulate randomly, unceasingly, completely. We burn with the passion of every new love since the beginning of time and give birth to new universes never conceived previously. We play and create. Play and create. Play and love.

Time to return. We are prompted by a force beyond ourselves. A cosmic tap on the shoulders. Time to come back. I open my eyes and see Romeo lying in his bed in the nursing home. It's now dark outside. We really flew away, and we really returned. It was not my imagination. We really flew away. Rather, we flew into and through and with each other. We locked eyes with our situation, with Romeo's dementia, and flew. We saw everything, and love took over. We, Romeo and his Juliet, simply rode along, flew along on this joyous ride of love.