As I opened the door to that little cottage – the one that was a silent witness to hope and fear – its familiar scent snapped me back into awareness.
It was often the case when I drove to my father’s home during his final years; I’d lapse into memories followed by overwhelming anxiety that this would be the day something really difficult would happen. It was always the same, however. He’d be sitting there at the tiny kitchen table looking out the window waiting from someone, anyone to walk down the broken cement path and knock on his door.
I entered, calling to him a cheery hello. He had, of course, seen me coming and he called back, “Come aboard.”
Passing through the nearly empty dining room heading to the kitchen, I spotted on the floor along the wall a collection of brand new items. There was a flashlight, a butterfly net, a kite, a child’s sand pail and shovel. My heart sank as I asked, “Dad, who brought you these things?”
“No one,” he responded with a joyous edge to his voice. “I bought them for the kids for Christmas.”
“What kids?” I asked. Here was a man who had two or three young great-grandchildren, children he rarely saw, so no other children came immediately to mind. I didn’t understand the context of these items on the worn carpet, but I should have.
“My kids and my wife are on their way here now,” he said.
My knees felt as if they would buckle, my heart pounded nearly out of my chest, my mouth went dry. He had purchased Christmas gifts for his imaginary family.
He had been slowly building the loving new family in his mind. For weeks whenever we’d do grocery shopping, he’d mention the need for certain foods because the family was coming over. I shot down those thought bubbles with arrows from my reality quiver. “Your wife is in the nursing home, Dad. Your kids are grown. I’m cooking for you at my house.” He’d look away, barely acknowledging that he heard what he didn’t want to hear – that he was living alone now.
We’d spent so many hours together, especially after my mother needed permanent nursing home care. She was only five miles away. It might as well have been a million.
During those last years, Dad and I became two lost souls bridging the growing distance dementia was putting between us with happy banter and home-cooked meals.
As a child, Dad hadn’t had much to say. Now he talked all the time. When his brain could still process current events, we’d talk about the latest news, or I’d include him in paying the household bills or tell him about my job. He’d ask questions, praise good performance, denounce politicians, and wonder why his wife didn’t make more of an effort to get well and return home. His own survival instincts didn’t allow for any weakness of spirit.
The daily phone calls I’d make to him several times throughout the long daylight hours always required an answer to his most pressing question, “When are you coming over here?”
He didn’t like needing help, but he understood he had to accept it. Surprisingly, and more easily with every passing day, Dad accepted help with grace and humor as his aging brain’s personality crumbled away.
I stood there for several long minutes, minutes that meant nothing to him now that time expanded and contracted in magical ways. What to do about the Christmas gifts purchased at the local hardware store for his imaginary family? I finally breathed in deeply and said on the exhalation, “That’s nice, Dad.”
I asked if he still wanted to go out to eat, a favorite pastime that always gave him joy and made me feel good. He said yes, he’d go, but needed to get right back so as not to miss the kids’ arrival.
I made the outing last as long as possible. The December sky turned gray and was swiftly darkening as we slowly walked back to his door.
The gifts emotionally assaulted me once again. I felt guilty for not being one of those kids he was longing to see. I wanted to slip into his world with that new family. I wanted to laugh with delight catching butterflies and fly the kite on the summer breeze, and take an evening stroll holding that brand new flashlight. I wanted what Dad wanted – a happy family to love and be loved by.
As he shuffled past the collection headed for his table and chair, he said, as if to himself, “Oh, they didn’t come yet. Good. I’m home in time.”
I promised to return tomorrow, gave him a kiss, and hustled out the door, sucking in air like a drowning swimmer. I drove to the end of his street, stopped the car, and screamed until nothing was left but the empty longing I knew he must feel.
The end of the story is that I returned those gifts to the hardware store the following week with Dad’s permission. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do for my old man, or maybe, the hardest came later – living with this memory.
By Marilou Newell