I’m not here today to tell of another dream visit with someone who has passed-on.
Instead, I am here to share with you, some of what I see in my dear husband as he draws nearer to the other side (from where dream visits come.)
Sometimes he can find words to express what he wishes to express. Other times he cannot find words. And then sometimes, he thinks he has found the words, but they make no sense to me.
“What’s her name?” He will ask me whenever he wants to speak of a family member from daughters to my sister who lives with us and helps in his daily care.
Daily care. Now that’s become whatever he needs: A TV program, more volume, another one, watch the movie again — he slept through the first play. Go to the bathroom. Change his pull up and clean his privates. Perhaps he tried to go alone while I was upstairs and then everything has to be changed and the bathroom cleaned.
His bell rings in the night. We run to his rescue. Sometimes he’s on the floor with, a bleeding head and/or hand, where he fell from his recliner. But last night, he stood in the middle of his room, naked, without his oxygen on. His clothes, urine soaked, lay in a heap on the floor. A four foot diameter circle of wet yellow was visible in front of his recliner. We were grateful that he stood and had not fallen. He was disoriented. However, he did appear to know who we were and where he was.
Often, he wakes up and has no idea where he is. He does not recognize our home or his belongings.
He can barely get around hunched over his walker. Usually he tries to hang onto the brakes lever instead of the handles above. His hands jerk all over the place and he has a great deal of difficulty to grasp anything, including the walker handles.
We use drinking glasses which seal with rubber and have a straw inserted which will not pull out, because he drops them and slams them off his table (by mistake.)
He worries about his salvation and is very intent on saying the rosary with us every night. Of course he sleeps through 90% of it 99% of the time.
He has little interest in eating. Except he loves his strawberry ensure. He will drink eight of them in a day and then have the diarrhea for several days and complain because he’s getting too fat. He will say not to order anymore of them, he’s not going to drink them anymore. Then five minutes later he will ask for two of them.
He wants to be shaved most every day, but is losing interest in showering. We have had a large shower installed and I do all his showering. Getting him in and out of his shower chair is tricky. I dry him in his walker and dress him from there as well.
Going to the barber is just way too complicated now because he can barely get around, so I cut his hair too. He looks in the mirror to see if it passes his inspection. The mirror…. He keeps one beside his recliner and looks at himself throughout the day and night. When we go in the car, he pulls down the visor, puts the mirror light on, and looks at himself in the mirror. Is he trying to remember what he looks like? Or is he making sure he is still here? I don’t know.
He used to be an avid follower of the news, watching several stations. Now he never listens to any news and does not know current events (which he used to obsess over.) Nor does he read. He used to be a voracious reader. He can no longer read.
The happy moments for him are when he sees his deceased loved ones. One night he saw his father standing by me and looking at him while we prayed. Sometimes his mother and sisters come sit with him in the night. Sometimes soldiers from his service in Vietnam lay in cots around him.
From the day after we were married, he always woke up with the first words out of his mouth, “Good morning, my love.” No more. He may not remember my name, but he remember I am his wife. He worries what he would do without me. Never a jealous man, he now worries I am upstairs with a boyfriend. (No, I would never have a boyfriend.)
He runs the TV twenty-four hours a day. He keeps the light on beside his recliner twenty-four hours a day.That light on thing has been going on for twenty years. Without a light, he would often wake up in Vietnam…His military records show he spent 42 months there. But I know he has spent 57 years there. There is never a day he doesn’t (attempt to) talk about it.
He obsesses about the dog. “Have you fed him yet?” “Have you given him a treat?” “Where is the dog?”
When I feed my husband, I have to tell him what it is and if he likes it. “What is this?” He attempts to ask.
I answer, “Banana pudding — your favorite.”
He swallows. “It’s good.”
While his brain is emptying, I know that his spirit is still all intact. But it is leaving his body and his brain. I will miss him but will be happy for him when I know that his spirit is free to think and soar, without his broken and failing body, without limitation. Yes, I will miss him. I miss him now. While I still can kiss his sweet tasting neck and brush his hair, most of him is already gone. What remains pretty much intact is the urge to go to the toilet and Vietnam. While it may seem odd to the reader, I will miss those last two pieces of him when the TV no longer blares throughout the day and night.
