After my call to The Guiding Star, I contacted the senior relocation service that had helped with our move to the Carmichael Oaks apartment. I arranged to have Mike’s room set up, ready and waiting with familiar pictures and furnishings. Two days later, mid-morning, I told Mike I was taking him to a new place where he could play the piano and entertain the residents.
“I’m not going back to that place,” he said, referring to the Citrus Heights Bridges memory care program where I’d tried to get him set up on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule.
“This is a different place. Rachel’s there. Remember Rachel?”
“Yes. I’m not going.”
But he did go. He followed me to the car and got in. On the freeway he asked numerous times to be let out so he could walk home.
Dale had earlier burned a CD for me of instrumental arrangements of hymns. We both loved the old Baptist hymns we’d grown up with, though we’d long ago rejected the accompanying theology. The wordless instrumentals were perfect, though in reality the music wasn’t wordless. The words were all lying dormant in my mind, brought to the surface by the old, familiar tunes.
I started the CD, hoping it might have a calming effect on Mike.
“Do you like the music?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. He sat quietly, seeming to listen, then breaking the spell to ask, “You’re not going to leave me there, are you?”
He asked that many times, and many times I answered with a lie. “I’ll pick you up this afternoon,” I always said.
I followed the experts’ advice for dealing with dementia sufferers: Keep it simple. Be reassuring. Don’t try to explain because they can’t understand. Explanations will only further confuse them. Tell the kindest story. Lies, lies, desperate lies.
Rachel met us at the front door, quickly managing to charm Mike as she’d done at their first meeting. She spoke simply and gently, saying she could use his help. Could he help her a little? Maybe play the piano for a while and talk with residents?
“Sure!” Mike said, answering with his old enthusiasm.
I kissed him goodbye, told him I’d see him soon, and walked to the door. He followed along, but Rachel easily led him back toward her office.
By the time I made it to the circular driveway that led past The Guiding Star entrance, Mike was standing close against the glass entrance doors. He watched, forlorn, as I drove away. The CD automatically started again. Of all hymns to land on it was “This is My Father’s world…” and to my listening ears/all nature sings/and round me rings the music of the spheres….
And there he was, suddenly before me, the young Mike, in his blue choir robe, gracefully, magically, drawing music from a disparate group of children, my own among them—Sharon, 8, Cindi, 7, eyes glued to the man who was, unbeknownst to any of us, soon to become their father. The song continues, “I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas/His hand the wonders wrought….”
The nearly 40 good years with Mike overcame the past few bad years, and a torrential flood of long blocked sobs burst through. I pulled to the side of the road, weeping for all that was lost to me, and even more for all that was lost to Mike, and for those two now-grown little girls, and for the son who came later, and for the dog, and the lost house, and for wars and famines and every other damned sorrow in the world, and then back to Mike, back to those scenes of who he had been and of who he had become.
Who knows how long I sat there? Finally the wrenching sobs subsided, and my focus shifted to the present. To tasks at hand, to what was next. I found a crumpled Starbucks napkin in the glove compartment, wiped my face and blew my nose, took five deep yoga breaths and deemed myself fit to drive.
As I turned onto the freeway, heading back to Sacramento, dark clouds parted to reveal a growing patch of sunny blue sky. If this were a movie, or a novel, such a scene would be trite and contrived. But it was neither of those. It was my life. And, knowing there would be more darkness to come, I treasured the fleeting gift of light.