Creative Writing: A Small Act of Kindness

photo: F LoBuono

A Small Act of Kindness

7/15/11

My father was dying a terrible death. The onset of Alzheimer’s disease had been creeping into his life for about two years. Now, he had it at its full-blown, most insidious worst. He was not quite 70 and not in good health. He suffered most of his adult life with severe asthma. Treating that malady led to other health issues. The medications prescribed by the doctors were always robbing Peter to pay Paul. What was he do? It was so difficult to watch him struggle for breath on warm, humid summer nights. He would do almost anything, ingest almost anything to take one, pain-free breath. But, as in all things in life, there are consequences to every action. Those consequences for my old man were a cascading litany of health issues: heart, blood pressure, circulation, arthritis, etc., etc..

Although his Alzheimer’s was becoming more apparent as he aged, it was slow and gentle at the outset. But that all changed rather suddenly.

About 3 months before his death, he was cleaning the gutters on our home in Fort Lee when he took a misstep off the ladder he was using and landed awkwardly. Almost immediately, he began complaining about pain in his legs. Of course, we took him for X-rays, which were negative. Still, he complained almost incessantly about pain in his legs. Also, with each passing day, in addition to the constant complaints of the pain, my father became more confused. His ability to communicate clearly became increasingly difficult. It soon became too difficult for him to elaborate on what might be wrong with him. Because of this, the doctors who saw him dismissed his continuing complaints about his legs as the confusion of a “crazy old man” . After all, the X-rays were negative. Finally, after being cruelly rebuffed by a number of doctors, one MD had a brainstorm: “what if the issue was not really with his legs, but in another area of the body, perhaps his back”? An X-ray of my father’s lower back revealed a small broken bone in his spine, causing severe pain in his legs! So, he was not so crazy after all.

Ultimately, the issue of the broken bone in his back became completely insignificant compared to what was happening in his mind. It was explained to us that a normal, healthy mind could deal with multiple challenges. We can be in pain and still articulate our thoughts. In my father’s diminished mental state, it was one or the other: deal with the pain or articulate his thoughts. His mind chose the former.

As the weeks went bye, he became less and less lucid. He developed so-called “sun downers syndrome”. At dusk, he would get restless and take his favorite dog for walks that went on for miles. A friend once spotted my father and the dog walking together a few towns away from where he lived – an astounding 8-10 miles away! Although peaceful at first, he seemed to grow more agitated as his confusion increased. He was rapidly losing his mind. Much to my mother’s agony, it became painfully apparent that we would have to find some type of facility that could care for my father.

Because of the various, other infirmities my father suffered with, he was often shuttled back and forth between hospitals and convalescence homes. This was the mid-1980s and Alzheimer’s care (if you could really CALL it that) was virtually unheard of. The quality of the care was just atrocious. Because my father could be agitated from time to time, one hospital felt that they would deal with that by either sedating him or restraining him! I remember one visit to him while he was in the hospital when I found him bound to a steel chair! On other occasions, he would be so sedated that even if had had all his mental faculties, he still wouldn’t have recognized us.

Alzheimer’s is the cruelest of diseases – worse than cancer, worse than diabetes, worse than heart diseases – because it robs you of your essence. It steals your memories and, so, your inner life. After a few weeks shuttling back and forth between care facilities, my father had no outward recognition of ANYONE in the family. In the beginning, he could hold simple, polite conversations. Now, he could barely speak at all. This was, of course, particularly hard on my mother. For her, not only was she losing her husband, 36 years of their time together had been COMPLETELY erased. It was also ironic that this disease should have taken someone like my father. He had such a wonderful, curious mind. He loved to read, he loved to learn, and he loved to talk. These are all traits I would be most flattered to know he bestowed on me. How sad that it was now all gone . .

On one visit to him at the convalescence home, he seemed to be particularly out of sorts. He was even more delirious then usual. And he was physically struggling. When the doctor saw him, he told us that my father was extremely dehydrated and would need to be immediately transported via ambulance back to the hospital for treatment. We eventually found out that his condition was caused by his over-sedation by the hospital staff. I asked if I could ride with him in the back of the ambulance. I was told that there would be no problem with that. They loaded my father’s gurney into the back of the ambulance and I took a seat on a bench right next to him. As the EMTs were completing their paperwork before we would get started, I was stroking my father’s hair (he had the coolest hair – it looked like wire but was really incredibly soft). I can still smell it to this very day. I noticed that, due to the dehydration, my father’s lips were so dry and cracked. I asked the doctor if it would be OK if I gave him some water. The doctor said, “sure, of course”. I cupped his head with one hand and lifted it gently. With the other, I began pouring water on his lips, slowly at first, then more rapidly as he recognized the water and began to eagerly gulp it down. His eyes were closed. Then, suddenly, just as he finished the last drop, he turned his face towards me and opened his eyes. He looked right at me, deeply into my eyes, something he hadn’t done in weeks, and in a weakened but clear whisper said “good”. Just that; “good”. And then, he looked away and closed his eyes again.

He never looked directly at me ever again or uttered another intelligible word to me. But I’ll always have that moment. It was as if he was releasing me from HIS bondage. With one simple word, “good”, he was saying that all would be fine in the end – life still had its joyous, simple and yet profound moments.

When he died, 2 weeks before his 70^th birthday, I was relieved. The suffering ended and his spirit was released and all WAS good again.