6.5.24
If there were something I could do to help you. Or him. Or something I could say. Magic words, magic beans. But the train runs in only one direction and I’m not driving.
Dad’s on the can. Ron is out here at one of the tables but he wants to go back to his room, back to that recliner. He is completely confused. He used to be a doctor and he’s younger here than most.
Wanda is making her rounds; dropping off clean clothes. Dad has pulled the cord, turned the light on, set the beeper beeping. CNA Rachel to the rescue. Roommate Bob is saying hello, hey, yo.
Comes now Bob Lanaghan, making his way back from lunch, bent on the bathroom himself. Ron has gone back to his room.
6.9.24
“Everyone now will know about Lillian and her bathroom escapade,” says Lillian, to no one in particular.
I am sitting outside my dad’s room on A Hall. I look into Bob Lanaghan’s room and I see that he is lying down in there on his bed. Me and my bleeding ulcer, or my fatty liver, maybe both. Dad and his wet pants, light gray going dark with damp ten minutes after we made it outside. So I wheeled him back to be changed and we are waiting for someone to help us out. The Puzzle Lady sits at her table, still puzzling. Father Volk is slumped in his chair…
We have made our way to the Dammert dining room. At this table are me, my dad, Bob, and Father Volk.
Jen is short for Genevieve. Cuts, shorting. Four instead of five I heard it said, I overheard, and was meant to. It’s been thinned here, noticeable now for a couple of weeks. Even in the way lunch is served, the drinks. Saturdays before it was Kim or Ann, Joy-el.
“They didn’t put a lot of stuff on here, I don’t know why,” says Bob, feeling for what is on the table, which is nothing yet…
Saturdays are a sledgehammer, take what you can get. Today for the first time here I changed out my dad’s wet diaper, changed him out of his wet pants. He wanted it done, we waited a little while. He had gotten attention (poop) before I got here so if it didn’t involve number two I thought, “What the hell, I’ll just do it myself.” He was able to stand and hold the bar firmly while I changed him. He seemed stable while standing. I can do that change when he needs it.
The onus is not on the staff who are here, who are noticeably busy, stressed, stretched. It’s top down, it only gets thinner.
All not to mention that Bud is not here, might be dead. And Roommate Bob is (back) in the hospital, this time for something different, my dad said, something new. All in all, my dad seems alert. With it. In decent shape, relative to many Dammert residents.
From left to right are my dad, Ada, Father Volk, Ron, Bob Lanaghan, and Hazel.
Lunch service begins at 12:28. The sound from a wheel on one of the carts holding trays echoes around the dining room.
“That’s a squeaker,” says Bob. Earlier he asked aloud, “Did I climb poles in Signal Hill?”
I must have said something, asked him something to prompt this rejoinder but I can’t remember what. Were we talking about Signal Hill? Had I asked him about his time with the power company? Or is he carrying forward a conversation from the last time I was here?
I’m helping Bob with his food. Ketchup packets, waffle fries, mayo.
“Do you like mayo?” I ask him.
“Ketchup?” he replies. “I use that sometimes. I can eat ’em with or without.”
When I pivot to talk to my dad Bob doesn’t realize I am not talking to him. He is capable of responding to any statement or question. His eyesight is poor but his hearing is very good.
“This is a ketchup fry?” he asks me, holding up a fry.
He gets two sandwiches, an extra helping of food so he can put a little weight back on. He takes the slices of bread from the top and bottom of his sandwiches and eats the bread while setting the rest of the sandwich aside, for now.
When it’s grim, it’s grim. Why stay alive long enough to live this life?
I had my most unpleasant moment so far with one of the CNAs on A Hall right before we came into lunch. As I was changing my dad. She apologized for not being able to help when I was asking for attention but she said that they were short, and told me, “I just changed him a little while ago.” Her budget’s drained but he’s paying $8500 a month. Saturdays and Sundays should cost less. If only I could wish for it to be over.
Out in the hall outside the lunch room, I heard her tell her comrade, “I’m fittin’ to flake.”
Yo-yo told her, “No you’re not. You got this. Bourbon after work.”
And me with my bad liver.
The soup today was mushroom and onion. Bob didn’t want his so I’m eating it.
“Man, I’m sticky,” he says, “I’m gonna have to get up and go clean myself.”
He pushes his plate in my direction.
“I don’t think I’ll be using it,” he says. “You don’t want it, huh?”
“Nope,” I say. I figure he might come back.
“Well, three tries, nobody got it,” he says, “It’s in the bag. A sticky bag because I’ve been fingering it. I’ll leave it on the table and somebody at this office will pick it up.”
As he begins to walker away he stops and looks back over his shoulder to add, “I’ll see if I can get the wife down. She’s up the hill.”
After my dad is done eating I wheel him over to and through the St. Francis Center entrance/exit. We stop to sit.
“I was looking at a cicada down there, crawling along,” he says.
He’s spotting them now, even as they flutter in the air, especially as they flail on the ground. As we sit here under this birch there are many cicadas on their backs, kicking their arms and legs, trying to find their way back up, and out.
***Bob Lanaghan passed away on June 1, 2026. He was 93. You can find his obituary here.
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