Despair With Gift in Dementiaville

I walk into Romeo's room at the nursing home. He lies in bed, eyes closed. I quietly slide a chair to his bedside and sit down. He opens his eyes. I smile. He responds with a quizzical look.

"Who are you?" he asks.

I want to think this is a joke. I want to believe that Romeo is pulling my leg. He's teasing me, isn't he? He knows who I am, doesn't he? He's always recognized me. Surely he knows who I am! Surely he knows we've been married for more than five years! And surely he knows that we each are the love of each other's lifetimes! Right?

Maybe not. I cannot react as if it were a joke, Romeo's not knowing me. If it's true -- if he truly does not know me -- well, I have made a vow to myself that I will always take him seriously when things like this happen. To preserve his dignity. This is what he is entitled to, his dignity.

"I am your wife, Juliet."

"Oh."

"Do you remember me?"

"No."

"It's okay. Can I hold your hand?"

"No."

"Okay. Do you want me to read to you?"

"Yes, that would be nice."

So I read to him. Later, when we have finished the chapter, I ask again if I can hold his hand. This time he says yes. His hold on my hand is nonexistent, but I hold his softly. We sit silently for a while. He is tired and drifts into a shallow sleep, comes back for a few seconds and drifts again.

"Would you like to go to sleep now?"

"Yes," he says.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?"

"Yes."

I kiss him gently on the cheek. He closes his eyes. I leave, holding back oceans of tears.

On the way home I stop at the grocery store. At the entrance is a small display of carnations and beside it a sign:

Need a Lift?
Take a Free Carnation

I recognize this as a gift from the Universe. It could not have communicated any more clearly to me than this, than with this flower. I silently offer my gratitude: "Thank you from the depths of my being." Its response is a wave of love that washes over and through me and surrounds me, embraces me. I smile, close my eyes, inhale that love and hold it inside. "Thank you."

I choose a plump, moist, red carnation. Carnations, the flower of love. Red, the color of love and the symbol of blood and life.

A few minutes later, at home, I fill a vase and place the carnation in it. I put it on the coffee table and sit on the couch. As I admire and study this simple flower, tears come. I cry with abandon. Again. And I know that I am supported and embraced and cared for and loved.

A Daisy Chain in Dementiaville

Romeo and I sit in the TV room with a host of other nursing home residents, watching the news. On my right, Romeo sits in his wheelchair. We hold hands.

As the weather report comes on, another resident whom I'll call Sarah, is wheeled in. I have seen her many times before. She has always appeared to be in a trance, not quite in this world but not quite out of it either. I have never heard her say anything, not one word.

It's crowded in the TV room, but there's a space next to me. A nursing assistant wheels Sarah into the room and parks her to my left. Everyone is quiet, eyes on the television. After a few minutes, I feel someone pick up my left hand and slip it into hers. She holds my hand, squeezing it gently over and over again. I turn my head and see Sarah, holding my hand, smiling, still gently and happily squeezing my hand.

She makes eye contact with me! She turns her head to face me. She smiles, her eyes looking directly at me, then at our entwined hands, then back again to my eyes. She gently squeezes my hand again and again. I feel the love circulating between us. It travels from Sarah through me to Romeo, back through me and then through Sarah. A sort of daisy chain of love. I don't even notice as the five-day forecast comes on screen. Who cares about the weather when such sweet and innocent and sincere love is present?

Throughout our time together and during this journey that Romeo and I have undertaken with his dementia, we have been to many unknown places, experienced many surprising and wild moments. Yet here is another, an unexpected soul-filled moment, another opening of the heart.

Early Morning Call in Dementiaville

It's 6:30 a.m. and the phone rings. I know it's Romeo before I roll over in bed to grab the phone off the nightstand. I am barely awake.

"Hello?"

"Hi there."

"Hi, Romeo."

"I had to tell you before I forgot."

"Okay."

"I need some more dental floss."

"Okay. I'll bring some next time I come."

"That will be great."

"Okay. Anything else happening?"

"No. I know it's early, so I'll let you go.

"Okay. Good-bye."

"Ciao."

Later, when I visit Romeo, I take two packages of his favorite dental floss. I open his toiletries drawer and place them with the other two packages already there and make a mental note that I won't have to buy him dental floss for quite some time.

Hugging and Holding in Dementiaville

Romeo is tired, lying in bed when I arrive. He doesn't want to get up, which is his usual custom when I visit. So I pull up a chair and sit beside the bed. He closes his eyes. This may be a short visit.

A few minutes pass slowly, quietly before Romeo reaches for my hand. His skin is so white compared to my own fair skin. He is so very white, so frail. Yet, I see the signs that he will momentarily turn into an alpha male. He'll act confidently. He'll take possession of the situation, he'll claim his woman. He'll love me.

Romeo looks deeply into my eyes, reading me like no other has read me before. And then he pulls me toward him, and I have to move to the bed, to sit beside him. He pulls me downward, toward him, to hold me. We stay in that awkward embrace, me leaning over him, until my back begins to ache. I sit up and rest for a while, then he pulls me down to him again. We hold that embrace all the while he croons and whispers his love to me.

And then he closes his eyes. "I'd like to sleep now," he says.

We kiss, I release his hand, move back to the chair. In a few minutes, he is asleep. I stay for a while, then get up to go home.

Sipping in Dementiaville

I sit in a chair beside Romeo's bed. We sip on soy steamers I brought from a local coffee shop, as Romeo enjoys an oatmeal raisin cookie -- his favorite sweet tooth remedy (besides chocolate, of course).

Romeo drops a few crumbs from his cookie onto his shirt, the bedspread. He asks me five or six times how he should hold the cup of soy milk so he can sip from it. He can't see well enough to detect the little drinking hole on the lid and asks me to point it out. I do exactly that. He lifts the cup toward his mouth but stops about 12 inches short. He holds the cup stationery and instead tries to move his head toward the cup of warm milk. This isn't working so well, as he can't move his head close enough to reach the cup.

"Romeo, move the cup to your mouth."

He can't figure out how to do this. I gently take his hand and move it toward his mouth, his fingers clutching the cup so tightly that the lid nearly pops off.

He stretches his lips and overshoots the hole. I realize it's simpler if I take his hand and back it up so the cup meets his outstretched lips. It works. He takes a drink, smiles, and begins the long journey to set the cup back on the tray in front of him. He misjudges the distance and nearly spills, but I'm right there to grab the cup without missing a beat. Another catastrophe avoided, without giving it a second thought.

A reflex, I do it without knowing what I do...until later. And then the full impact of it hits me. I am an extension of him. It's built into me. I anticipate his missteps, his wants and desires, and am there to pick up the slack, to present him with want he wants. As if he were me, as if we are One. Goodness gracious, this man, Romeo, tears at my heart strings.