The Catskill Chronicle

By Janet Waterston

The message on my voice mail came across with a sing-song quality. “Hi Janet. It’s Laura, your dad’s social worker at the Home. He’s fine. I just need to tell you something.” Everyone from the nursing home has been trained to say “your  parent is fine,” so family members don’t panic. “Your father is fine; he just fell out of his wheel chair and has a hematoma the size of a grapefruit on his head.” “Your dad is fine; he just told his table mate to ‘go f— herself.’”

I called Laura. Her perky voice sang out, “You know your dad really isn’t himself any more. A bed has come open on another floor, and it’s time we move him.” This is her euphemistic way of saying that it is easier to move a current resident to one of the lesser desired floors in order to open up a bed on the model first floor where my dad has lived for five years since a stroke left him paralyzed on one side.

I was acutely aware that Laura has no real concept of whether my father is or is not himself. She does not know the man who taught me how to ride a bicycle and  then drove me and my friends from the block to celebrate at Carvel. She has no idea that he was the “go to” resident in his apartment house, correcting grammar on a poem’s translation for someone from Russia; escorting a pregnant neighbor to the hospital in the middle of the night when her water broke; or picking up groceries for someone housebound. Has she even a clue as to what type of father he was? Does she know that he drove us, always in a good spirit, to Sunday school and music lessons and performances, sometimes picking up our friends as well? She doesn’t know that after my mother had a mastectomy, he read a book about how husbands could and should be supportive and, years later, counseled a friend who hadn’t touched his wife since her surgery.

“Okay,” I said, knowing that I had delayed the move as long as I could. “To which floor is he moving, and when?” “He’ll be on two,” Laura said and added the move would either be tonight or tomorrow. “The dementia floor?” I almost choked, “I was hoping he could move to three.” Laura offered a reason why a move to the third floor was not desirable, and I didn’t bother arguing. There probably just wasn’t an open bed on three and, anyway, what would the difference be? The move, any move, would be disruptive, and my father would have to make an adjustment no matter which floor was the destination.

That evening, my sister Jude and I made our regular Thursday night visit and told our father about the prospective move. He was sanguine. “Okay; what can you do?” he smiled without further comment.

Dad was always a realist with a positive approach to life. When my mother went back to school in the early seventies, and my sister and I would complain about her nose in her school books, my father happily typed her papers (as he always did ours) and pitched in more with household tasks. When his company newsletter interviewed employees about the impact of shifting roles of men and women, my father said: “My wife – who was the housewife of all times – went back to college and got a degree in Community Health, went on two job interviews, was offered both jobs, and is now working in the Isabella Old Age Home in Washington Heights as a social worker. She has to leave for work before I do, so I make the breakfast, clean up, make the beds. And in the evening we do the shopping together and do the dishes together, which leaves us as much time together each evening as we used to have. I liked it the other way, and I like it this way too. I loved her going to school. I love her working. I love her.”

I told Dad I’d checked out his new room and met the person assigned to be his evening aide once he moved. It was Winnie who we all knew from when he first came to the Home and was on the rehab floor. Dad continued to smile; he didn’t remember Winnie or Venice, the nurse, his one-time favorite nurse, who  now works on his new floor. In fact, he can’t remember the name of any of his current aides although he recognizes them, sometimes as the people who inflict pain when his stiffened muscles are moved and sometimes as the angels who help him into bed immediately after dinner when he is  tired and sore from sitting all day in the wheelchair, often unable to hear because his hearing aids are broken or he’s placed them in his shirt pocket, and he can’t see because of macular degeneration.

I returned upstairs to ready the new room with some of his clothing, the painting by his brother, and the bulletin board full of family photos. Jude stayed with Dad and helped him eat the coffee ice cream we’d picked up at the local Haagen-Dazs.

As it turned out, Dad wasn’t moved for a full week. No one called to tell us he was still in his old room or why the move hadn’t taken place until I visited a couple of days later and learned “there is an issue” on the second floor. Scabies. Apparently the Home was waiting to move my dad until the “issue” was eradicated.

I visited Dad on his first day on the second floor. I wheeled his chair into his new room, and he pointed with great pleasure at the bulletin board and his brother’s painting. At 94 years old, he’s often too tired to use words. “Yes,” I acknowledged for him, “I moved your things to the new room, so it would feel like home.” “How about some ice cream?” I added. No, Dad shook his head. When he first had the stroke, he would say no meaning yes and yes meaning no, so I repeated, “You don’t want any coffee ice cream?” “No,” he confirmed, “I’m not hungry.”

“How about doing a crossword puzzle?” I asked, and he assented. My father was always a word maven who read voraciously and entertained himself with anacrostic puzzles. As his vision faded and his mind clouded, we discovered crossword puzzles were easier to complete. Jude or I read the clues and give the first letter of the word. Some days, Dad can answer everything, and he still spells better than either of us. Some days, he’ll look blank when we give him the answer. “Oak,” I’ll say, “An oak tree has acorns.” He’ll shrug his shoulders. In that moment, he thinks he’s never heard of an oak tree, or because his hearing isn’t very good, he won’t know I’ve said “oak.”

We have a stash of puzzles that Dad researched and devised for publication in his company newsletter. One begins “The word ‘razzle-dazzle’ has a fine ring to it, undoubtedly because of its rhyming halves. Will we razzle-dazzle you, or can you guess them all? The first clue is “Primitive rites based on a belief in sorcery, dreams and fetishes.” The answer is voodoo.

Another puzzle lists the names of famous Americans who routinely used their middle initials as with Booker T. Washington and Richard M. Nixon. The correct answers were Taliaferro and Millhouse, but how many people would guess that Harry S Truman’s middle initial didn’t stand for anything? A third puzzle is based on the French influence on the English language, i.e., “a broad, often landscaped, thoroughfare” is boulevard and “given to dashing display, showy; resplendent” is flamboyant.

During my first visit with Dad on his new floor, he periodically smiled and stated, “I love you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Then he asked where Jude was, and I reminded him, again, that she was working. “Let’s see if we can reach her at work,” I said,  using my cell phone since the Home hadn’t yet moved his phone, television, or clock. (Only the maintenance department can do that, I was told.) Dad had said little since I arrived, perhaps because his hearing aids also hadn’t made it upstairs yet. I wondered if he’d speak into the phone. He heard Jude’s voice, and he cleared his throat, “I love you,” he told her. “I miss you.” I could hear Jude telling him she was sorry she couldn’t be there, and she would see him in a few days. “I know,” he responded, “Work has to come first. I love you.” He handed me the phone.

Long before there was something called “Bring Your Daughters to Work,” my father would take each of his three children, in turns, for a day in his office. I found it particularly thrilling to go for lunch at the Automat with Dad and his assistant, Kathy Horan. And I felt so grown-up when he introduced me to his coworkers or let me sit at an office desk. Sometimes, since he was in advertising, we’d be treated to watching a reel of commercials. I bragged about my visit to his office, and people responded by asking me what my father did at work. “He laughs a lot,” I answered.

When I was older and had jobs of my own, I would sometimes pick up sandwiches and join my father in his office for lunch. He kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in a drawer and poured us each a small glass. He never indicated impatience that he had work to do, only that I had his undivided attention.

Dad pointed to his bed. “They won’t put you into bed yet,” I explain, “It’s only 4 in the afternoon. After dinner, which is in about an hour, you can go to bed.” My father understood there was no choice in this matter or most others. He is at everyone’s mercy. Now he was in pain, so I arranged to get him a Tylenol, and he was content to watch me put away the rest of his belongings that had been left in a large cardboard box on the floor of his room. “Here’s your quilt,” I showed him, referring to the lap quilt I made that covers him in the wheel chair when he’s cold. Then I saw it was stiff from spilled food. Why doesn’t someone put this into the laundry bag, I thought? Never mind. Like Dad, I too am at the Home’s mercy. I threw it in the bag of dirty clothing to launder at my apartment and pulled out the afghan my cousin Marylin made for Dad in honor of his ninety-first birthday, the last one on which he was still able to travel from the Home. I said, “You usually like this on your bed. I’ll take the quilt home to wash.”

 Again my father told me he loves me. I finished putting things away and suggested I bring him into the dining room since it was almost time for dinner. “What do you hear about Buzz?” he asked, referring to my brother. “He died, Dad,” I said, “A little over a year ago.” My father sighed and shook his head.

Three days before my brother died of multiple myeloma, Jude and I visited Buzz in the hospital. We’d brought photos of him, as a child, with our father. Dad kept two huge photo albums that included early pictures of his family and our mother’s; his stint in the Philippines at the end of World War II where he befriended a family who remained in touch for years; and the chronicling of the childhoods of the three children. Many of the pictures show my father’s love and warmth and his silly side, clowning around with his great grandchild or laughing with his adult children.

Three days after my solo visit, Jude and I returned together to the Home. Dad was in the dining room with all the other second floor residents, waiting for dinner to be served. His feet had slid off the wheelchair and were scraping the ground. With Jude’s help, we somehow maneuvered his stiff legs back onto the chair and wheeled him toward his room. “We’ve brought food,” one of us told the nurses, indicating they could keep the tray of unappealing pureed mush.

Dad always had a small appetite, but he appreciated good food and influenced all of us to try new things. When Buzz was young, perhaps while I was still a baby, my parents were eating lobster and wanted Buzz to try it; he refused. My father said sotto voce to my mother, “Don’t push him. Lobster is so expensive; it’s just as well if we don’t have to buy it for him, too.” Immediately, Buzz took a taste and was hooked. Years later, Dad introduced the three of us to sushi. This time he wasn’t quick enough in catching Buzz before he popped the entire heap of wasabi, a super-hot garnish, into his mouth. Dad took us to El Faro for Spanish food and to Topkapi for Turkish. In each restaurant, my father befriended the wait staff who gladly walked Mr. Waterston and family to Dad’s special table.

As I wheeled Dad down the hall, we passed a room in which a resident, virtually naked, lay on the floor moaning and trying to pull herself along. I left Dad in the hallway and ran back to the nurse’s station where I found Marie, a nurse who had previously worked on the first floor and who Jude and I referred to as The Nitwit. “Marie,” I said, “Are you aware that the woman in room 214 is lying on the floor and dragging herself along?” Marie had that deer in the headlights look. “Oh, is she?” she said and, I presumed would take care of it … eventually.

Jude had taken Dad to his room and was helping him eat some trout salad she had made and which he clearly enjoyed. He asked what it was, and they discussed the difference between trout and white fish salad. He commented, “I was thinking of calling my parents and taking them out for lunch tomorrow.” Jude teased, as she had many times before, “Dad, you’re 94. That would make your parents about 140!” Dad shrugged and chuckled.

Dad visited his parents almost weekly, and he frequently drove upstate to see Jude and me at our weekend home in the country. Visiting his parents, he fixed things around their apartment and ran errands for them. When he came to see he us, he bore treats he’d picked up from Costco. Sometimes he’d have chosen a package of trout made three ways or shrink-wrapped smoked salmon. Once he even stopped at a favorite seafood restaurant and arrived with clams on the half shell. We weren’t the only ones who enjoyed his largesse. He loved bringing packages of grapes or pretzels or cookies to his local library where the staff hid away the latest mystery for him to sign out.

I had to go back down the hall to get Dad’s hearing aids, passing room 214 where the same resident was still lying on the floor, although now an aide was standing in the doorway, her back to the woman. I imagined she was waiting for someone to help her lift the woman, but I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t covered the woman with a blanket, or put a pillow under her head, or, for that matter, why she wasn’t facing the woman and comforting her. I made the mistake of telling this to Dad and Jude upon my return to the room with Dad’s hearing aid case minus the aids (that would take another trip to locate). I sent Jude, always sympathetic and sensitive to the plight of others, into tears. “The baby is crying,” Dad said, referring to Jude’s status as the youngest in the family. “What should we do?” I asked, “Kiss her? Hit her?” “No, tell her to use logic,” was his retort.

That’s Dad. If you can’t do anything about it, don’t agonize over it. When I was about to go on my first date, Dad shared his wisdom: “I understand that women today like to pay their own way, and that’s fine if you want to. But if a guy insists, don’t be a shmuck. Let him.” Another piece of wisdom was not to worry about cost once I was out. “Just enjoy whatever you’re doing. Don’t let money get in the way.”

When I began working and commuting into the city, Dad was equally wise. He told me to allow enough time for subway delays and if, and when, my train was held in a station, not to huff and puff or mutter under my breath. “It doesn’t make the train run any faster,” he cautioned, “And it’s not worth getting all worked up for something out of your control.”

On our next visit to the Home, we arrived bearing cookies for the staff. Venice, the day nurse, joked that we were trying to ruin her figure. As she handed me Dad’s hearing aids, she mentioned he wasn’t feeling well, and they were keeping him in bed. I asked whether he could eat the ice cream or tuna salad I’d brought. No ice cream, she said (and was happy to eat it despite her concern about putting on the pounds); we could try to feed him the salad.

We found Dad lying in bed with his shirt on but unbuttoned, and a sheet thrown over his middle with his legs below the knees exposed, revealing his feet swathed in bandages for an infection caused by the breakdown of skin due to lack of protein in his diet. Another indignity and another pain.

Dad smiled to see us and managed three tiny mouthfuls of tuna salad that probably amounted to a teaspoon-full. “Don’t live this long,” he said to Jude. “I wish I could do something for you,” She empathized, “Janet thinks we should have a pact to end it all at eighty-five.” Dad nodded his approval.

We worked on a crossword and Dad was sharp, coming up with the right answers, so that we were able to begin and finish a second puzzle. While we were doing that, the “wound nurse” came in to change Dad’s foot bandage. As she worked, we continued with clues. “Buffalo’s lake?” I asked and before I could say that it begins with “e,” Dad responded, “Erie.” And then added that it’s the only Great Lake the puzzle ever asks for. “The opposite of happy,” I said and Dad joked, “Unhappy,” then added, “Depressed.”

“What did your dad do?” the nurse asked me, impressed, or perhaps surprised, to hear someone on the dementia floor clearly able to answer appropriately and with facility. I was annoyed. The nurse heard him being responsive; why didn’t she ask him, directly, what he did? I told her advertising and then brought Dad into the conversation. He asked what she was doing, and she announced the good news that his wound was healed.

Later that week, Jude and I arrived early enough to take Dad out to the patio where Jude provided a dinner of salmon salad, avocado, and mango. She fed him because even his “good” arm seems to have atrophied and chewing takes all his energy. Halfway through the meal, Dad sighed and indicated that eating is a tiring ordeal. “It’s lovely out here,” he said, most likely forgetting that he has enjoyed the patio for the last five years. When his bedroom was on the first floor, we’d leave him out on the patio to enjoy the fresh air when it was time for us to go home. On the second floor, he’s not even allowed to remain in his room but must be in the dining room with other residents.

Dad was, and still is, a social creature, but he preferred company in small doses. He and my mother had a group of friends with whom they took turns hosting dinner parties and celebrated major birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Dad once transliterated an album of Yiddish songs and led the group in a sing-along. But he also said, “Friends are like a rich dessert. You love it, and at a certain point, you’ve had enough.”

After my mother died and his second marriage ended, my father served as a “gentleman host” on cruise lines. He was given a small drink allowance to entertain the ship’s guests and was expected to attend all social events and dance once with each woman. He had to dress in either a white or black tuxedo jacket and the obligatory red bowtie. He sailed off to Europe or down to the bayou. Back home, he regaled us with stories of blue-haired ladies who came on to him or the husbands who were grateful when he asked their wives to dance, thus relieving them of the responsibility. He enjoyed the trips, but was happy to be home and be by himself for a while.

On this warm evening, we headed back into the building and passed Inge, a first floor resident. My father waved to her and she said to me, “Your father still likes me.” I nodded, knowing it is Inge who has had a crush on my father since she came into the Home. Thankfully, they both seemed to have forgotten that he told her to shut up when they were seated at the same dinner table. The elevator arrived and Jude and I wheeled Dad back to the dining room where someone gave him his dinner tray. With exhaustion, he tried lifting a spoonful to his mouth. “Dad,” I reminded him, “You just ate. You don’t have to eat that.” He smiled. “Oh, good. I didn’t want this.” We exchanged good-bye kisses and waved as we left Dad, still smiling.

Back on the first floor, the two evening nurses asked us how Dad was doing on the second floor. We told them about the naked woman crawling between the beds, and Alex tried to console us by saying the nurses and aides on two see these things all the time and therefore may take it a little more in stride. She assured us they are still as caring. Valerie added, “You know we love you,” and Jude started to cry. Veronica, the receptionist, called after us, “Daddy doesn’t belong up there.”

“Father’s Day is coming up,” I said to Jude as we approached the parking lot. We’re usually at our country house by Saturday night, so we had to decide whether to postpone our trip upstate or visit Dad on Sunday. “He won’t remember as soon as we leave,” I added, thinking of him trying to eat a second meal after the one on the patio. “We’ll know,” Jude responded and, as if on cue, we both said, “Should we bring him sashimi?”