'til Death or Dementia Do Us Part

by Marilyn Reynolds

  By the time I pull the contour sheet over the fourth corner, you are there. I see you wrestling the bottom sheet over the fourth corner of our California King mattress, then pulling it taut, all corners even. As I tuck the top sheet under the foot of the basic mattress, I see you, forming a tight, perfect fold at each end of the foot of the mattress, then carefully folding the soft, sage green top over our favorite wool blanket, fluffing the comforter, arranging the freshly cased pillows, the end product worthy of a magazine cover.

  You couldn’t stand a loose top sheet. On the rare occasion when one of your corners didn’t hold, when one of us had somehow kicked the top sheet loose, you would get up, even in the middle of the night, and redo the loose corner.

  Back in the days when grief and loss seemed so far away that we could laugh at the possibilities, we would joke that if I someday woke to find you lying cold and dead beside me, all I would need to do would be to kick the top sheet loose and you would rise and fix it. If things were reversed, you could drag my lifeless body to the shower, prop me up under the steamy flow of hot water, and I would slowly revive, as I revived every day with my early morning shower.

  I finish making the bed, knowing that within a night or two the top sheet will come loose. I won’t fix it. I don’t mind a rumpled bed. I’d rather be sitting here, writing to you, than remaking a bed. And no matter how tightly I fitted the corners, or how carefully I tucked in the bottom sheet, it would still not be our bed. Our bed is a thing of the past.

  Here’s the thing, though. No matter how I try to change my sleeping position to the left side of the bed, or even the middle, I always wake up on the right side. My head knows the days of our sharing a bed are over. My heart knows it, too. But it’s as if my body hasn’t caught up. As if my sound-asleep body moves to the right, expecting you to come in late from a rehearsal, or a performance, and slide into your side of the bed, silently curling your body close to mine.

  I visited you at Sister Sarah’s yesterday. Until several weeks ago you would smile and give me a hug when I walked in, or when I met you outside as you were walking your loop. Both the smile and the hug were glancing, a millisecond interruption in your determined path. But since I’ve started bringing cookies each time I visit, you reach for my hand, focused only on the baggy of cookies. Four. Chocolate chip. That’s what I bring to you. I buy them in bulk from Raley’s and keep them frozen, removing four at a time, knowing they’ll be thawed by the time I get to Orangevale.

  It’s interesting to me that you remember that. It’s a set routine for you. Also interesting that you always reach for my right hand. Even if I keep both hands behind me so that the cookies can’t be seen, it’s the right hand you choose. If I stopped bringing cookies, how long would it take for you to forget that routine and go back to giving me a quick hug? But I won’t try that experiment. There is so little left for you to enjoy, and the cookies bring you some brief moments of joy.

  I wish I could talk directly to you, but you’re constantly on the move. When I walk beside you, it is not a companionable walk—it’s just me following along with you totally focused on the next step, and the next.

  How much speech can you understand? When Sang or Daniel say, “Michael. Give me a hug!” you open your arms. When the doctor asks that you take a big breath, you do. Always when I visit, you go to the parked Prius and try the door on the passenger side. It’s always locked. That’s a habit from before, back when you were angry and unmanageable. I was afraid you’d get in the car, and we’d not be able to get you out. But you’re cooperative now. When you try to open the door, I tell you, “We’re not going anywhere today,” and you walk on.

  What if you still understand speech even though you can’t initiate it?

  I could try taking you for a ride again. Have you in a confined place so I could talk to you. I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed most of our years together. How much I’ve loved you. How I’m doing as right by you as I possibly can. You’re okay in the car now, as far as safety goes. But once out of the driveway, you’re anxious. You sit, body tense, leaning forward, looking straight ahead, eager, I think, to get back “home.” I become anxious, too. Nothing is easy.

  Goodbye for now. You are always, always, in my heart. I’ll see you in a few days, cookies in hand.

  Marilyn

  THE TABLE

  April 2010

  Early in the morning, I put Mike on a plane to Burbank, where he was met by Anne and Bob, longtime friends. They walked the streets of Pasadena, eating at restaurants he’d loved from our Altadena days. They browsed Vroman’s bookstore, the oldest and largest independent bookstore in Southern California. They stopped in at one of Anne and Mike’s all-time favorite places, Jacob Maarse, described on their website as “the gold standard in floral innovation, craftsmanship and aesthetic refinement.” They kept him busy, busy, busy, then sent him back to Sacramento the next evening. During that time I was free to pick up moving boxes, take them to a new storage unit, make a myriad of sensitive phone calls, and revisit our new dwelling place at Carmichael Oaks.

  The morning I returned from taking Mike to the airport, I sat at the dining room table, going over my lengthy, pre-move to-do list—cancel automatic deposits in preparation for switching checking accounts, arrange times and details with movers, get yet another detail of the power of attorney transfer notarized, call Southwest to be sure I can escort Mike to the gate and wait with him until boarding time when he flies to Florida next month. Get TB tests required for Carmichael Oaks entrance, get “soiree” on the Carmichael Oaks calendar, assess non-liquid assets, work on the next chapter of Over 70 and I Don’t Mean Miles Per Hour, get contract to Hiram Johnson High School for coming school visit, take the car to be serviced … I had so many lists, and folders, and telephone messages that I’d moved my computer away from my cluttered desk and into the dining room, expanding the clutter onto the dining room table.

  I stared absent-mindedly at the teak table as I sipped coffee and pondered which of the many tasks that lay before me I should start with. A light scratch in the table caught my attention. I remembered when we bought the table at the Pasadena Plummers store, more than 35 years ago—the table that’s had all those Christmases worth of both meat and vegetable lasagna, Caesar salads, and grandiose Christmas/birthday cakes for Dale. It’s the table around which my mother, and Mike’s Aunt Virginia and Uncle Norman, and Marg’s mother, Thelma, and Norman’s second wife, Jean, and Mike’s parents, and my Aunt Gladys, and so many others of the dearly and not-so-dearly departed gathered, Christmas after Christmas, as if the Christmas gatherings around the Danish teak table would go on and on and on. And it’s not only remnants of the departed captured in the patina of the table. There’s the resonance of the still living hovering just below the surface of the now worn teak—laughter, complaints, talk of politics and the world, talk of times past and things to come. What will become of this table when we move? There’s certainly not space for it in the Carmichael Oaks apartment. And now I can’t even start on the to-do list until I know the destiny of our memory-filled table.

  I call my daughter, Sharon. “Do you want the dining room table?” I ask.

  “Well … we could use the table. But don’t Matt and Leesa want the table?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve got the big seminar table borrowed from Whitman College.”

  “But …”

  “If you want it, I’d like to continue eating occasional holiday dinners on it.”

  “Doug’s attached to the antique table.”

  “It’s falling apart.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  I should work through the stacks of immediate importance, but what I really want is to do something nice for the table. She’s a little dry looking, with maybe a refried bean or two caked into a crack between the leaves, and a few light water spots from sweaty glasses. And there’s that little scratch that caught my attention in the first place.

  After
a few half-hearted attempts at the list, I shove folders, lists, calendar, bills all to the right half of the table and rush, rush as if compelled, to the laundry room where I grab the Starbrite penetrating sealer-preserver teak oil and begin slathering it on the left half of the table. I take my time letting it soak in, then wipe off the excess as directed. Two more times of this regimen, then I cover the left side with a beach towel, move all the clutter from the right, and repeat the process. Much better. The water spots are gone. There’s no trace left of the refried beans. A warm mellow glow emanates from freshly oiled teak. But … there are still two small sections of the table, about the diameter of a Mason jar lid, that are dry looking. More oil. More elbow grease.

  Finally, the table renewed, I turned my attention back to the list. The top item, circled in red, was “bank accounts.”

  According to the bankruptcy lawyer, I needed to walk away from the bank we’d used ever since moving to Gold River. The bank where we also had a loan account with a balance of over $10,000. The bank where they called me by name when I walked through the door. I was to set up a new account at a totally different bank.

  It was time to stop procrastinating, to get on with things. I dialed the CalSTRS customer service number, canceled my automatic deposit and requested that my retirement check be delivered the old-fashioned way, by the U.S. postal service.

  After I’d arranged to keep my CalSTRS check out of the banking system, I called back, relieved to get a different person on the other end of the phone. I identified myself as Michael Reynolds.

  Although as a teenager I’d wished that my voice were more feminine sounding, over time I grew not only to accept it, but also to recognize that there were certain advantages to sometimes being heard as a “sir” on the phone. On that day, with CalSTRS, it was a definite advantage. I gave Mike’s date of birth, his current address, and reeled off the now memorized last four digits of his Social Security number.

  In less than half an hour I’d taken the beginning steps toward skipping out on scores of financial commitments—commitments made in all good faith. Less than half an hour to launch me down a path to becoming someone I never expected to be. I was stunned by the implications of what I’d just done. I felt shoddy.

  A few years back in one of my many short-lived attempts at spiritual enlightenment, I attended a half-day meditation workshop. Now would be a good time to empty my mind, I thought. Though I hadn’t practiced steadily enough to master the mind-emptying technique, it was worth a try. I straightened in my chair. Feet planted firmly on the floor, I took the requisite deep abdominal breaths, in, out, in, out. I let intruding thoughts pass through my too busy mind. My unfocused gaze rested on the table, newly aglow in the afternoon light. It was consoling. Maybe I, too, might someday be refurbished.

  MOVING ON

  May 2010

  Walking back from dinner at the Richmonds’, a path we’d walked under similar circumstances hundreds of times over the past decade, I was suddenly aware of the magnitude of the changes that were upon us. This would be the last night Mike and I would ever spend together in our Promontory Point home. I’d drive him to the SF airport around 1 the next morning (May 5), and when we backed out of the garage it would be the last time Mike would ever see the home that we’d so enjoyed for many years.

  I’d arranged for Mike to spend the next 10 days with Jerry and Jackie, his brother and sister-in-law, in Tampa. The day before, while he was out with the Wards, I worked my way through all but the last three items on my to-do list:

  Pack Mike’s clothes.

  Be sure he has I.D., cell phone, itinerary.

  Review directions to SF airport.

  Write note to be handed to ticket agent explaining that I need a “non-passenger escort pass.”

  Put another note in an envelope for the flight attendants asking that they remind Mike not to get off the plane at the Denver stop.

  Come home from airport and pack house.

  Move to apartment before Mike’s return.

  Don’t look back.

  On that walk home from the Richmonds’ I reminded myself that although this last night was highly symbolic, the changes had already happened. We’d not really lived there, together, as partners, for the previous two years. The decisions were mine. The upkeep was mine. The financial responsibilities were mine. All of it was mine to balance, while Mike had the washing machine going endlessly, while Mike talked of wanting a Mercedes convertible, wanting to get his teeth straightened, let his hair grow to wear it in a ponytail, and go to Vienna, all while the wolf was at the door, and I was juggling. But on that soft spring night, walking the well-known path by the light of a more than half moon, Mike’s warm hand in mine felt like the old Mike’s hand, the familiar hand that had known and treated gently, every crease, every surface of my well-worn body. It would have been easier if that weren’t the case.

  The drive to the airport was traffic-free. I listened to a tribute to Howard Zinn on “City Arts & Lectures,” a pleasant surprise that showed up on our local NPR station. Mike dozed.

  At the check-in window I got a “non-passenger escort” I.D. and walked Mike to the gate where I could wait with him until he boarded the plane. I passed a prewritten note to a flight attendant asking that he remind Mike to stay on the plane during the Denver layover. Mike had no idea where or when to board, or how to get a boarding pass, or how to get from one terminal to the next, but he was willing to take direction. He would be fine. I hoped.

  On my way home from the airport I stopped by the storage place and picked up the waiting boxes and tape, then drove home. I carried the boxes through the door that led from the garage, through the laundry room, to the kitchen. It was a little after 10. I hauled boxes into my office and started packing. I packed books from the built-in book shelves. I packed the framed covers that Mike had given to me after the publication of each book. Well, each book except for Shut Up, the 2009 publication that had escaped Mike’s notice. I packed the “Save the Last Dance for Me” ceramic plaque with the image of a glamorous dancing couple, and the wooden sign that said “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History”—the first steps in the heartbreaking process of dismantling our decades together as full life partners

  By noon friends had arrived with lunch and stayed on to pack. Carmichael Oaks provided five hours of Smooth Move services, and the owner of the company, Pam Landers, arrived in the early afternoon. Days before, when singer friends had taken Mike to lunch and a movie, Pam had come to the house to take pictures. A “certified relocation transition specialist,” she’d walked through the house with me, measured furniture that I was hoping to take, then took snapshots of furniture, tables, picture placement and mirrors on walls, etc. Aware of Mike’s condition, she knew that the more familiar the new place looked to him, the easier his transition would be. After she’d familiarized herself with our Promontory Point house, she and I went together to Carmichael Oaks. She measured rooms. We talked about possible furniture placement. She’d done 100 or so such moves during the past year, and no detail escaped her consideration. On that first packing day she brought more moving boxes, recycled from a previous move. She and a helper carefully removed and packed pictures and mirrors that were to go on the Carmichael Oaks walls, then took them over to the new place.

  Piano movers arrived in the late afternoon and partially dismantled the piano, wrapping each section with heavy moving quilts, steadying the body of the instrument onto a dolly, and lifting it into the back of the truck where they securely strapped it to the side. Within the next hour or so, our piano was ensconced in the Carmichael Oaks living room style common area. It would remain our piano, but would live at Carmichael Oaks for as long as we did, or until we decided otherwise. I keep saying “we,” but there was no more “we.” Whatever the appropriate pronoun, the piano was moved and so, soon, would the rest of “us” be. My hope was that seeing his piano there would help with Mike’s adjustment to the move.

  There
was now a big vacant space in the living room where the piano had stood, and boxes of china and crystal were packed, labeled, and sitting on the floor in front of the emptied bar cabinets.

  Late in the afternoon, I got a call from Jerry in Tampa.

  “We’ve got him home,” Jerry told me. “I met him right when he got off the plane. We rode the tram to baggage claim. Jackie met us right there.”

  “Did he have his jacket and red carry-on?” I asked.

  “He did. Beth and the girls are coming for dinner tonight. We’ll do fine.”

  I relaxed, knowing that Mike was in good hands with his older brother.

  With the help of friends, family, neighbors, box after box was packed and labeled. There were five destinations for boxes: Storage. Apartment. The Harveys’ barn. Give Away. Consignment. Although I did some packing, I spent most of that time designating where each box was to go, and, too often, wandering aimlessly from one room to the next.

  It would have been impossible to do any packing in Mike’s presence. He would have held onto everything in sight. Over the years he had repeatedly said that he didn’t want certain things ever to leave the family, or that he was never going to part with certain things, etc., etc. For the past several months I’d not even been able to put papers into the recycle bin without him dragging most of them back inside. Poor Mike. I suspected that his clinging ever more tightly to the things he could grasp physically meant that on an intuitive level he knew he was losing all that he’d been. He could no longer engage in meaningful conversation. He couldn’t put two thoughts together. He couldn’t drive. He couldn’t direct singers. He couldn’t make sense of times and locations in the newspaper movie listings. For him to be at the house during such chaos would have been excruciating. I was ever grateful to Jerry and Jackie for this 10-day break.