Voice in the Night

Somewhere in my deep subconscious mind, I heard something; a deep occasional hum or a muffled bark.  Was it the neighbors' dog at my 'garden level' window or was it the wind howling past our deck.  It was singing a haunting tune, the old Jimi Hendrix lyric, 'the wind........cries.........Mary.'   

I woke to full consciousness and lay there silently on my back for a few moments orienting myself.  "Was I dreaming," I wondered as I reached out with my right hand to see if my wife was still asleep beside me.  I touched her side and she sighed gently and rolled to her right.  I spoke aloud in the darkness, "What time is it?"   


She didn't answer.  I reached for my alarm and pushed the snooze button.  The numbers flashed to life and filled the room like neon-green lightning, burning my sleep-filled eyes.   

4:18.   

Even without my glasses I could clearly see the numbers I had feared.  I released the button and the room fell dark and silent.  I listened and I hoped.  I hoped I wouldn't hear again what I knew I had already heard.  

Then it came again, out of the blue, like the sudden glaring light from the alarm clock number, but this time I heard it clearly.  The voice moaned, "Albert!"  It wasn't the wind or a dog, my wife snoring or Jimi Hendrix.  It was a muffled voice calling my name.  "Albert," it pleaded, then fell silent.  Then just as I began to wonder if it was for real...there it was again, "Albert."  Then again, at 15 second intervals.... "Albert!" Pause....... "Albert!" Pause...... "Albert!" Pause......

I got to my feet and felt around for my emergency t-shirt and sweat pants, the ones I like to leave on the floor beside the bed, just in case.  I pulled them on as the mournful cry continued.  From the bed I left behind I  heard Audrey's voice call after me.  "Dad?" she queried.  "Yup!" I dully replied.  She rolled over to my side of the bed as if to embrace the sleep I had left behind and said with a contented smile I could feel through the dark, "Thank you."   I offered the obligatory middle of the night, "Uh huh," and made my way through the darkness to Dad's apartment a floor above. 

Dad's TV flickered silently, not unlike a fireplace, as good old Leonard Slye, a.k.a, Roy Rogers, sung a Western favorite to Trigger and the gang. 


"Good morning," Dad bellowed gleefully, happy that someone had heard his calls.  With all the mercy of a Army drill sergeant, he begin to issue my marching orders for the day.  My neck stiffened and with all the charm of  of a teenager listening to their ipod through ear buds, I ignored the orders and surveyed the situation.   


Dad sat waiting for help on the edge of his bed.  He had removed his Depends, soaked from the activity of the night, leaving them deposited on the floor at his feet.  He had pulled his TV table to his bedside.  On the table was his sports bottle - he can't really drink without a straw - the lid of which he had removed in the night.  Half of the bottle's contents were spilled on the table.  As Dad continued to issue imperatives, I instinctively reached for the bottle and began to replace the lid.  


Suddenly Dad interrupted himself and shouted, "NO!" and lunged for the bottle.  It was 4:30 in the morning and I was pretty tired but I was still able to out maneuver him.  "Why?  What's wrong with it?" I retorted, still carrying a teenager sized chip on my shoulder.  "It's poison!" came his reply.  "Poison?" I retorted incredulously.  I thought of all the stories Dad tells of being kidnapped and held hostage and left to die alone and I immediately dismissed the poisoned sports bottle as yet another improbable story.  "How did it get poisoned?," I said, now getting dangerously close to taunting him.  I was too respectful to say it, but in my heart of hearts I wanted to say, "Did Big Foot do it?"  


Welcome to my world, the world of Humility 101.  It's moments like these that reveal the true nature of my heart.  I feel sorry for myself.  I want to go back to my sleeping wife and say, "You deal with him, I've had enough!"   


Frankly, this has been a tough week for me, probably the hardest since shifting the load of  my Father-in-law's care off the shoulders of my beleaguered wife and onto my own.  This was the second night in a row Dad had awakened early in the morning, eager to get the day started, unaware of the toll he was taking on the comforts of the rest of the household.  Our afternoon volunteer was sick, leaving me alone for the day to care for most of Dad's needs and desires.  Though Dad sleeps many hours during the day, the 7 am to 8 pm shift gets relentless and sanity seems to slip away with the hours of the day as Dad continues to need help with yet another thing.  Starting the day at 4 am was just a little beyond the pale.


In spite of all that emotion, I withheld my desire to mock and asked Dad again how the sport's bottle had been poisoned.   He looked me in the eye and said, "I couldn't wait and I couldn't walk there, so I pissed in the bottle.  It's poisoned."


I looked at the bottle in my hands.  Again I thought through all the delusions.  I looked back at Dad and said, "NO YOU DIT-ENT!"   


He smiled and asked for cereal and a banana.  


As I trudged to the toilet to dispose of the mystery drink, I pondered what else the day might bring.  Perhaps this day would be best taken with a large dose of prayer.    


    

Held Hostage

It must have been Lock Up the Good Guys Day on the Westerns Channel. 


Each time I looked in on Dad, another of our heroes was being held against his will.  On Have Gun Will Travel, the protagonist was being held behind bars, falsely accused of murder.  On Law Man, the marshal and his deputy happened upon a hostage situation and became hostages themselves.  On Wagon Train, the wagon master was among a group of men on the train who, one by one, disappeared into the snowy forest, victims of a scheme to sell human beings as slaves to a hostile Indian tribe.


Not a good day for the men in white.


Call it what you will.  Coincidence.  Self-fulfilling prophecy.  Poetic justice.  Maybe it's like the scary movie thing with little kids.  Ya know, the monster's under the bed thing, only it's the 84 year old man that won't go to bed.  If they can be held against their will on TV, it could happen to me too.  Whatever the reason, the hostage scenario carried over into our real life that day, at least the real life drama that goes on in my father-in-law's mind.


By the time Dad had finished his dinner he was convinced he was being held in this place against his will.  Not unheard of, but this was an unusually difficult case.


I wish it were possible to convince Dad once and for all that this is his home.  After all, his apartment was designed and built just for his needs.  But most days, we settle for convincing him that it's simply not time to go home.  He usually responds with patience.  He is, by nature, a very gracious man.  That helps.  It also helps that he has a very short attention span.  Something he considers a major crisis now isn't even on the radar screen in five minutes.  Often a simple, 'Let's wait and see!' is the best approach.


Donna, a neighbor and friend who visits Pop regularly, had tried a more honest approach earlier on Lock Up the Good Guys Day.  Dad had been relentlessly trying to stand.


Donna exhorted him, "Stay put, Pop. Where are you going?"


"I've got to get ready to go," he replied.  They'll be here for me any minute."


She gently assured him that he was safe at home.


"See the clock and the TV Patrick got?  And look there is your Jesus picture," she encouraged. "These are all your things, in your home.  You are already home, Pop!"


He settled in his recliner, scanned her face and then each of the objects she had named.  He sighed as if suddenly realizing he was indeed the one who was confused.


"Yes, I know," he stammered.  He thought for a moment but then, clamoring back to his feet, he blurted, "But I can't walk over there so I'll have to be ready when they come for me."


It was that kind of day and the beat went on through dinner into early evening.  My goal was to get Pop into bed and then settle down myself for some time with my wife and daughter.  Yet, there was Dad, relentlessly insisting on being permitted to go home.  I used all the tricks I knew.


I was beginning to feel like I was the hostage.  I finally resorted to the strong arm tactics.  I finished my final argument on a stern note.


"This is your home!  We are going to get you ready for bed!  Okay?"


He looked squarely in my eyes, testing my resolve.  He knew I was in earnest.  His spirit broke, his aged eyes flooded with tears.  He said, "Okay."


"You know Dad," I said, "It's not that late. Do you want to go to my place and see what's going on there?"


His face brightened.  He recovered his manly resolve and he replied, "Do they have cake?"


I loaded Dad in the wheel chair instead of the bed and headed for 'my place' on the other side of the wall that separates his bedroom from our living room.  Everyone was happy he had come.  He watched.  He talked.  He laughed.  He ate cake.


After about an hour, he was partied out.  We went back to his room and got him ready for bed.  He went to sleep a free man, happy to be home again with the family he loved.


Funny! That's exactly how it ended on TV.   
     

A Winning Moment

I gave Dad his breakfast and went to another area of the house to make some important business calls.  When I returned, Dad was fast asleep, slumped over to the right in his chair, his spoon still held firmly in his fingers.  The Cheerios scattered on the dark green carpet were only outnumbered by the Cheerios resting on his chest and lap.  They were concentrated primarily just below his chin.

“Guess I should have stayed to feed you today,” I said, mostly to myself.  

I grabbed a napkin to wipe his chin and began to clean up the cereal.  Swollen to twice their original size, the little circles of whole grain oats disintegrated in my fingertips as I tried to pick them from his neck and sleeveless T.  They were still drenched in milk and had begun to dissolve into a mystical union with the fibers of Dad’s shirt. 

Feeding himself isn’t always this big of a problem.  But, as the week had worn on, he had become less attentive and conversational, more turned inside to focus on his own inaccessible world. The inability to feed himself is par for the course. 

The signs of his inward trek were typical.  Earlier in the week he had become convinced he was being held against his will.  He woke a day or two later at 5am and began calling out for help.  Before I had a chance to turn on the light or ask him what was so alarming, he began ordering the immediate removal of everything in the apartment, from the television, to the grandmother clock, to the coffee maker, to the sheets and pillowcases.

“They took everything else while you were gone,” he insisted.  “We need to get the rest out before they come back.  I can’t believe they can get away with this.”

This seems to be a cycle Dad goes through regularly.  Today he had progressed to the part of the cycle where he stops talking and struggles with small motor coordination, part of his mild Parkinson’s disease we’re told.  A slight change in his physical condition, a head cold, or trouble with his bowels for example, will set the cycle in motion.  So far, as bad as he gets during these cycles, he has always pulled back from decline and returned to his normal self.  

But even in the midst of these cycles, he has his charming moments of clarity and wit.  Last week I found the man lying on his side on the floor beside his bed.  He had tried to stand on his own and ended up on the ground. 

I knew he had fallen but in order to downplay his fears, as I rushed over to his aid I said, “Dad.  What on earth are you doing on the floor?” 

He craned his head around and with a gentle smile he simply replied, “I’m resting!”

So there I was, wrestling him into an upright position after cleaning him up from his encounter with a stubborn bowl of Cheerios.  My face is inches from his when he suddenly bursts awake.  His eyes go wide open and he says without hesitation, “We won!”

  

A little startled and having no clear idea what he could mean, I played along.  “Really? I asked.  “What did we win?”

I walked to the sink to rinse my dishcloth and returned to wipe his tv table.  His eyes fixed on me expectantly. 

I repeated my question. “What did we win, Pop?” 

Just that fast he had lost his ability to find the right words to share.  He struggled to complete a meaningful phrase and finally fell silent again and stared away into space. 

I turned to see what he was focused on.  It was the TV.  My eyes locked on the screen and I remembered I had flipped from the Westerns Channel to Comcast Sports Net while I prepared his breakfast.  I guess I had forgotten to switch it back before I left the room to make my business calls.  

We watched together as the final seconds of Comcast Sports Rise ticked away.  Was he trying to tell me about a sporting event?  As I changed the channel back to his preferred station, he mustered his strength and mental focus once again.  He looked me in the eye and proudly stated, “Baseball!”

Dad didn’t know I had watched the Phillies win 10-7 over the hated Mets the night before.  Nor did he realize that Sports Rise runs repeatedly for several hours every morning and that I had seen the same replays twice already that morning.  

What Dad did remember, some how, was that I live and breathe baseball and specifically, the Phillies.  He had gathered all his strength and mental resolve just to let me know that my team had won a game.  

Silly as it may seem, this was a real moment of care and affection from Dad, a moment that demonstrated his selfless desire to see me blessed.  As such, it is a moment I will not soon forget.  

Way to go Dad and let's go Phillies!