Walking in Place

You spin away on the elliptical, adding klicks and minutes without going anywhere. Biting back against the extra pounds that threaten to consume you. This is how you completed your first 5K at the height of the pandemic. Safe from ridicule. Free to fail if the spirit lags.

These familiar walls embrace you. Or perhaps this is a cage of your own making. You’re a willing prisoner in this self-imposed house arrest, cut off from most of the chaos and consequences of the outside world. Work from home. Shop from home. The only thing that doesn’t get delivered is the mail. For that, you venture out once in a while. Downhill is easy, but the return incline tests your waning stamina.

The weekly visits to the Memory Care Unit break your otherwise settled routine. A half-hour drive each way for maybe fifteen minutes of watching the clock as she feigns sleep.

You hold your mother’s hand tenderly as if it might fray like aged fabric at the slightest touch. She’s always cold, yet her hand feels as if she’s just come from warming it over an open fire. You shift your hand for a moment, and she reacts quickly, grasping and patting. That’s when you notice her bright red fingernails. It’s not so much the color that stands out but the presence of fingernails at all—as if she’s forgotten even her lifelong nervous habit of chewing her nails to nubs.

She’s always been a petite woman, but now she seems to have grown even smaller, in both body and spirit. Her once ample figure has pulled in on itself like a black hole.

She rarely moves. She speaks even less.

If you could crawl inside her mind, would you find comfort there? Would you wander through a wasteland or be set upon by nightmare beasts? What color is the sky in her world? No doubt the clouds are made of soft-serve vanilla ice cream.

You’ve watched her fade a little more each week. Her once opinionated voice no longer calls out. On the upside, much of the acid has left her tongue, except on rare occasions when she seems to come back to herself.

If you could crawl inside her mind, would you find comfort there? Would you wander through a wasteland or be set upon by nightmare beasts? What color is the sky in her world? No doubt the clouds are made of soft-serve vanilla ice cream.

She tells the attendants to go away or calls them nasty names. She swats at their hands and sometimes slaps their faces. They smile through it all and call her “sweetie” and “dear.” There’s never any malice in their tone, no hint of anger or resentment at her verbal and physical abuse. She’s under their care. She’s in their charge. And they know dementia possesses her more than anything else.

On those rare occasions when she does speak to you, the most frequent question is “When are we leaving?” On more assertive days, she claps her hands on her knees and says, “Okay, let’s go!”

* * *

Your father was the same in his final months. He tried to bargain his way out of care. When even that faded, he made phantom business deals with long-dead associates. He was going global, he’d tell you, exploring new lands and tasting new foods—this from a basic meat and potatoes man. He never cared for change. He dreamed of bold moves that terrified him in the light of day.

He could never be moved. Not from what he liked or wanted. Not from what he believed. Even at the end, he probably died believing, in some small corner of his atrophied brain, that he’d been right about everything and everyone else was crazy or stupid.

When he died, you cried a little—not like the debilitating convulsions that overtook you when you lost your grandfather and your brother.

You don’t think anything will ever hit you as hard as those two.

* * *

Losing your grandfather was your first real experience with death. When your mother called that day, you somehow knew what she would say, that her father was gone. He was ninety-one, after all, and in failing health. Everyone knew it could happen at any moment.

You felt calm at first as you started packing your bag for the trip home. But the more you thought, the more unfamiliar feelings boiled up from somewhere deep inside. Next thing you knew, you were on the bed, curled up on top of scattered shirts and sobbing uncontrollably. You remembered his gentle nature and snow-white hair. You remembered basking in the warmth of his love when it was your turn to sit in his lap while he rocked. The smell of pipe smoke that clung to his ever-present flannel shirts left you with a lifelong sense memory.

You thought you’d pulled yourself together by the day of the wake. At twenty-two, you had no prior experience with such things, so it never occurred to you that his body would be laid out in the living room. The experience was so jarring that it haunted you for nearly a decade and inspired one of your first short stories.

* * *

Many more years passed before your brother died.

Once again, you were shocked but outwardly calm. You had a job to do, after all. Deadlines to meet. And no one else to cover for you that night. So you set off to make your rounds, winding through the mail sorting stacks and loaded dollies, collecting sheets of mail processing numbers, and smiling at any other evening staff you might encounter.

You were working an evening shift alone when your sister called to break the news. He died alone, his heart finally succumbing to a lifetime of abuse, a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a Bible in the other.

You made it to the loading dock on the far side of the processing plant before your emotions caught up with you, like a tidal bore sweeping in behind you. The smell of diesel exhaust thickened the air and somehow triggered a ball of grief to rise from somewhere deep inside. But you wouldn’t cry where others might see you. Then you would have to explain. Then there would be no remaining barrier against feeling.

Grateful to have so few potential witnesses, you somehow made it back to your desk without running into anyone. As the heavy door closed behind you, you leaned back against the cool metal and let the tears have their way. You cried for all the years of separation, the years he kept himself far from his family for reasons best known only to him, and all the lost opportunities for some type of reunion.

Had you known he’d been talking to his friends about finally coming home, would the tears have stung any less?

* * *

Everything was different when your father passed away. He’d been sick for so long and been declining so gradually. As his body weakened, so did his mind. No longer the jovial storyteller, he frequently lapsed into disjointed tales of his latest business ventures with long-dead associates or vivid hallucinations, like seeing a snowplow on a hospital rooftop. In the end, he didn’t recognize you or anyone else who still came to visit. The mourning process started long before he died.

You laughed during his wake and funeral. Everyone laughed. Several times. And he would have approved.

You all understood the type of man he was. At his core, he was a time-worn Conservative from a long line of Conservatives, including several Loyalist soldiers who fought in the King’s name during the American Revolution. He believed in working hard, earning your keep, and minding your own business. He thought Archie Bunker was a hero and probably missed the whole point of All in the Family.

He also believed in offbeat humor and ghosts. Strange combination? Maybe so, but both played into what happened at his funeral. Chaotic weather, from sun to rain to sleet and snow, seemed to follow the procession. In your sister’s rented car, you shared fits of uncontrollable laughter as the radio scored events with an unbroken stream of rain songs.

He told you, once and only once, that his father’s spirit haunted his dreams for years. Until the night he dreamt of seeing his father on the rocky beach. Fog rolled in as his father stepped into a dory and let the small boat drift away from the shore. Just before the fog consumed him, he waved and said, “That’s it, me son. That’s the end.”

* * *

Now that your mother’s almost entirely lost to dementia, you can’t help but wonder if you’ll remember how to cry when she’s gone.

And you wonder—not for the first time—if you’re being fair to any of their memories. If you could speak to them now, what would they say? Would they admit their mistakes? Would you admit yours? Or would you circle each other like unarmed duellists, looking for a tender spot at which to strike?

As a Daniel O’Donnell concert blares from the oversized, and overly loud, television in the common room, you feel her hand pull away. Her eyes open, but she still doesn’t see you. She slowly uncoils from the chair and reaches for the ever-present walker. She’s ready for her daily stroll. The same time every day. You know there’s no stopping her. You know your presence isn’t her concern. She’s found a bit of energy, and she’s determined to spend it, like a gambler with a windfall or a weekly cheque.

You offer to walk with her. She doesn’t say no. So you shuffle along the halls, side by side, to the click-slide of metal and plastic on tiles. You slow your steps to keep pace and quickly lose your balance, falling shoulder-first into the wall. Without breaking stride or looking back, she mutters, “Try to keep up.” So you pick up the pace, fast enough to maintain your balance, and she begs you to slow down.

Up and down the faux homey halls you walk. Together but always apart. Cut off from chaos and consequences. And adding klicks and minutes without going anywhere.

* * *