Bob walked into the main Dammert lunch room today. He hasn’t been eating in this dining room for a couple of months. It’s me, Bob, Lester, and Dad all at one table. Old times and new.
The snow brightens the room. They don’t seem to be offering Bob any coffee. He was sitting in here before we were. They said he just wandered in and sat down.
Brad got me some coffee. Bob is singing. LaDosha comes in, asks about Bob, goes out.
I have a feeling Bob wandered in because of how bright it is in this room. He can’t see very well but he might have been attracted to the light.
Dirk comes in, goes out. Bob mumbles clearly about coffee. He is missing it.
“How about a couple of coffee cups?” he says. “Isn’t there a week….”
Brad is taking the drinks cart around. A wheel squeaks.
“Coffee,” Bob says. “Please bring some coffee.”
There’s a new lady. She says to the not-so-new woman next to her, “I’m a wreck.” The other lady says, “No you’re not.”
First time seeing Dad this year. He’s been here 11 months, somehow. Loretta and her daughter talking on B hall. Loretta used to live in Seattle, in a house she never wanted to leave. Her daughter ordered pizza for the staff.
My dad is still in bed. He was asleep when I arrived but he’s been mostly awake ever since. Often with his eyes closed. He was asking me a few questions.
Loretta remains one of if not the most vocal resident here. She tells her daughter how much she loves her, more than she will ever know.
“2025?” she asks. “And where are we living? I like it here.”
Loretta would come here and walk every morning. Before she lived here. My dad would come here to walk sometimes, too. LaDosha thanks Loretta’s daughter for the pizza. I gotta get on that, ordering food for the CNAs, before it’s too late, if there is such a thing.
I had a banana that Dad was surprisingly interested in. Where did I get it? Was it my lunch? He said he was very happy I had it. That was a strange thing for him to say. He is lying there, no lights on in here but for sun through the blinds. He has his left index finger to his lips, rubbing it along them…
Jack died, while I was away. It's been seventeen days since I've been here. Carol also died, Carol Ann Baltosciewicz, but the name alone does not tell me who that is, was.
My dad is in bed. He was in the bathroom when I got here. Dirk was helping him with his business in there.
Jack was 94. He was a presence here. His straining voice. His love for his wife, Margaret, who lives in the apartment wing of the retirement community. They were married 65 years. Don't you go through that door now, Jack. I can hear one or more CNAs telling him that in the lunchroom. Don't you go through that door. But he would. The back door that led to the main dining hall, where he knew his wife would be eating.
I'm in my dad's room on B Hall. Rudy catches Tony getting into something he shouldn't and intervenes. Tony flintstones himself out of his room, and out of B hall, headed to the Bird Room or maybe an early lunch. An OG, Tony has always carried himself with such a pleasant, warm vibe but I guess we all get into a little trouble now and then.
Physical therapist Stephanie is sitting at one of the tables on B hall. Making notes. It's Stephanie, and Brad, who I remember taking Jack into the break room so he could play the piano that sits in there otherwise untouched. Jack played the piano well, all the way to the end. He had a full, white head of hair. He managed still to somehow look so tanned. He got outside here and there, must have. I only remember seeing him out in the courtyard a couple of times. He would try to talk, get agitated. Then Margaret would usher him inside...
My dad's feet are really swollen. Purple. He's got some sort of sock on, except they don't cover the most part of his feet. They're like something a gymnast would wear—ankle wraps.
But he looks alright. He's got the cradle/holster thing under him, the red, yellow, green, blue loops sticking out at four corners. I've never seen it under him before so maybe they are using a different crane than what Taylor used on him Wednesday.
Loretta is here on B Hall. She's nice. I heard her talking to one of Phyllis Nester's daughters one day. Ann. Their families were friends. They went to Michigan together. Went swimming, played tennis, enjoyed the air. Those were fond memories.
Director of Nursing Rose came in and put one pillow under his feet, to get them off the floor. I added one more. His bed is stripped of its sheets. The housekeeper whose name I don't know (not Peggy) swept in here earlier. Now she's cleaning the bathroom. If I wrote a book about this experience it would be called, The Shrine: One Year in the Hell of a Good Nursing Home.
I smell coffee from the hall. I'd love some. I didn't get any made before I left. My mom had some left in the pot at the house but I forgot to take some.
Lunch is here. Pasta, veggies, garlic bread. It smelled good. I'm sure it is. I'll never know. It'll be better than my Cucumber Worry sandwich. Side salad with egg wedge. Tapioca. I wonder who, if anyone, is eating in the main dining room. Who's allowed in there. Me?
I don't know what my objective is here today; how long I'll stay. I don't even want to go back to Rockingham. Maybe I won't stay. If so I wouldn't see my brother, but he hasn't come into the house this week anyway.
To leave Rockingham out of the day I'd have had to come over here at 8 or so. Do 8:30 to 11:30, then get back to University City to get Hugo walked and fed. That would have been fine, really. But I figured preparing to cook a meal tonight for my sick mother was the right thing to do. To make the effort. I guess my effort is not effortless enough...
Peggy cleans the bathroom next. Mom sends another text telling me to open the blinds, if I haven’t yet. Dad rips into another blustery hacking cough.
I want to know what else is going on in the rest of this place. Dammert. Has anyone died recently? The last five days? How bad is this Covid outbreak? How many staff are sick? But I won’t or can’t venture out.
Peggy is mopping the bathroom floor. CNA Taylor is out in the hall. Her and Rachel. That’s a good duo. He’s in good hands. It was bleak in here Monday. Thin. There was a puddle of piss on the floor when I got here, under his wheelchair. His pants were wet. I took it up with a towel.
Taylor checks in. She tells my dad she’s going to get him up when the floor is dry. Peggy is mopping the rest of the room, where the puddle was the other day, then where the cranberry juice was spilled. She mops with a slight bleach solution. Fine. The floor is clean.
Taylor asks him how he feels. He says, “OK.” But you sound terrible, she says. Peggy interjects, “A lot better than he did, though.” She says this as much to me as to anyone, and it makes me feel pretty good. Peggy is really nice. She has red hair. For a while I had forgotten her name.
I’m in my N-95 mask with blue disposable gloves on. My exhalation fogs up my glasses. My hands sweat. I would love a cup of coffee.
The stingray documentary has been over for a while. Now it’s Christianne Amanpour hosting a world news program.
“Is Netanyahu ready for a deal now?” she asks her guest.
I had gotten a book out of my bag, an old book that belonged to my dad called Zen Buddhism. I’ve had it for three years. That’s the last time he was home, in Ludlow, Massachusetts. His cousin Anna now lives in the house he grew up in, what I used to know as my grandpa’s house. His name was the same as mine except for the middle name. His was Beresford, after a Lord in England. Mine is Brian, after my dad.
Anna had a box of his books that had been sitting in the basement of that house, basically forever. I remember her telling me about books of his, boxes. Was I interested in them. I couldn’t really muster the energy to get excited about them. I was sitting out by my great aunt Elsie’s pool enjoying some downtime during what was a challenging trip. It was June 2021. There was a party for Elsie’s birthday. My brother and I had driven my dad out to New England, in what would be his last Buick…
Outside in the courtyard at Shrine with my dad. Brad had a mask on but no-one said anything to me about any new Covid restrictions. Within ten seconds of my clapping his shoulder to announce my arrival, Dad asked me to take him outside.
The lawn crew is edging walkways and borders.
”Where are we, the Shrine?” he asks.
”Where do you think we are?” I say.
“I think we’re there. I’m just guessing.”
The edger drones on, throttling up and down, back and forth, in and out, left to right. My dad’s eyes are blue, red, and watery.
”You want to go out there even with that lawn equipment going?”
A rhetorical question he does not answer.
It’s cooler. Way cooler. The two-cycle engine quiets for a moment, just a moment. And the rest of the soundscape steps slowly out from wherever it was hiding. The whir of crickets. Voices from inside.
”You’re not gonna see much in the sky,” he says, “ A few birds, that’s it.”
There’s the song sparrow, reeling off its spell. Nothing happens. They’ll be back to mow, and then again to blow. Maybe we’ll be at lunch by then.
The sky is cloudy. It might not even be eighty degrees, a stunning turn of events. Church bells. I’d go to that mass sometime. There are people in there who know me. Maybe they don’t know my name but they know my face and they know I’m here for my dad. That’s all I know to feel welcome. That is enough. Knowing more would break the spell. Question me, question them. See ya in another life, brutha.
”You want anything to read?”
”No, I just like to enjoy it out here,” he says, “I got papers in there I read.”
Remember back when my parents said they saw a panther, from the St Francis entrance? They said they saw a panther go through some grass, at the edge of the back parking lot, and into the woods. I thought it must have been a dog, or possibly a bobcat…
Last day of February and a beauty. Warm and windy, blend me some of that balm.
He's taking a shower. Or getting a bath. Per Karin. She saw me coming and intercepted. Not just to tell me about the shower but to tell me that, "He's more confused than usual today." She wanted to let me know so I wasn't blindsided.
Many of the days he's been here he's been confused so this should be interesting. Not a surprise to hear, per a text from my mom, and another a couple of days before that.
I haven't seen him in six days. I went to Farm this week. Two nights and a whole lot of bliss. Last time I saw him I wrote nothing. This writing, I fear, has gotten redundant.
I hear him moaning...
Farm, 2.24.25
They wheel him in.
"They got me, John," he tells me in a high-pitched voice. "They're gonna put me down. I been up too much."
"You know where you are?" I ask him.
"Dammert."
"You lookin out the window," I ask him.
He nods.
"Birds," he says. Rubbing his index fingers together, hands clasped, lying in bed now. Karin and another nurse laid him down, with the Hoyer. I could see his red and purple bottom. The other nurse put some cream on him. I'm not sure what her name is. She's not new but newer. Hell of a nurse. Dresses nice sometimes. My dad seems content but he is looking past me, out into the beyond.
"Anything new?" I ask him. "Anything going on?"
But he doesn't answer; just taps his fingers together. Is it Morse Code? Tap tap tap, tap tap dash.
"You hungry?"
No answer. Then he says I already asked him that, which maybe I did.
Now I hear the hairdresser reaming out the nurse for giving someone a shower. The hairdresser is upset because she just did this lady's hair and her family is coming to see her. Cringe. Bless these nurses. They work on behalf of God. Who could ever fault them for keeping the residents clean? Who cares about what their hair looks like.
I turn on the TV. My dad says something about me watching the stock market channel but they don't have it here. A shame. I find PBS Create, for a cooking show, which is what I watched here one recent Saturday for three hours, my dad in bed the whole time. It's peaceful with the sound off. A beeping somewhere in the background on this hall, not insistent, a slow pulse.
I had him up in the solarium 2.14.25, the only time we've ever been up there.
I know he wants me to stop asking questions but I don't know how else to talk to him, and this is all of him I have left. I ask him if he remembers his career, what he used to do.
"I used to, I used to...." he says.
I ask him if he remembers using his phone. He used to use it a lot. He doesn't remember doing that. Printing articles, I tell him, sending them out to people through the postal service, sending out lots of emails. He claims he never really sent out much.
He watches the cooking show intently, left index finger to his lips, rubbing slowly back and forth.
"You know how long you been here, in Dammert?"
"A couple weeks, " I think.
Which might be correct, if dating back only to his trip to the hospital on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, my sister's birthday, a day I was headed to Farm when my mom texted to say he was in the hospital with an illness.
I ask him if he's been having any dreams or premonitions. It's not the first time I've asked him about dreams. I've been having some strange ones. Strong and vivid. Odd. One last night that didn't feel like mine. About a kid worried about his gambling debt. I thought about it and told this kid that he might not have to pay the debt because he was a minor and never should have been allowed to place the bet anyway. Unclean hands on the other side, laches; other party estopped from collecting. I don't know who this kid was. And, no, I don't think he was me. B mentioned crazy dreams the same morning I woke up after some doozies Monday night at Farm. After feeling like it had been a while since I remembered any dreams at all. Stopped writing them down. This is as close as I'll get.
Footprints of a dream
The TV transfixes him. I don't know what else to do. I'll go out and get my salad out of the car whenever his food arrives. Could be half an hour, easy.
I listed to voices from the hall. Evelyn's daughter. Or granddaughter, who knows. I only had one interaction with Evelyn. Her chair was at a chokepoint in the hall. I wanted to move her. Asked nicely then just tried to wheel her a few feet but she put her foot down, literally.
"No," she said, "I don't think so. I'll stay right here."
Another time she didn't want CNAs to take her out of the lunch room. I look back and my dad has fallen asleep, his left index finger still trying to stay awake, to stay up, still pointing.
Evelyn played basketball in college. My dad snaps back, left hand back up to his face. It's her granddaughter that's visiting her, pretty sure. How am I the age of so many grand-kids here?
Earlier I asked him how he felt, overall.
"I feel good," he said.
It might be Evelyn who'd had her hair done—yesterday!—and then got the shower today. A whole $28 down the drain. The shower my dad got seemed to have revived him, definitely worth $28 to me.
Evelyn still has some lucidity. She still talks. I mean, I'd take pure gibberish from my dad. I'd take nonsense, non sequitur, monolog. Anything not hateful, anything not ugly. He said something to the nurses when they wheeled him in after his shower but I couldn't hear it.
I had called the Shrine the day before to make sure there wouldn't be an issue with my visiting. The person I spoke with was lovely and gave me very detailed directions on how to get to the memory care facility.
As I was driving around the main building, I had this lightning bolt-type remembrance of visiting the exact same place when my grandpa was there. It was eerie. I rationally knew it wa =s the same place, but I guess that memory was buried pretty deep. The last time I saw him, he didn't remember who I was. He thought my mom was his wife. It was all so sad. I guess I had repressed it.
After I was buzzed into the building, the woman at the front desk said that your dad was in B1, and as I turned to go down the hallway, your mom had just entered at the other end. When she saw me, she stopped-short, like she had seen a ghost. She recognized me immediately and was so happy. She said 'Ray, is that you? What are you doing here?' The best way I can describe her reaction was that she was both dumbfounded, with a look of both disbelief and happiness on her face. She was getting ready to leave, but offered to take me back to see your dad.
We went into the room and your dad was watching CNBC (or one of those channels. It was the one with the guy who rolls up his sleeves and gives financial advice. Jim Cramer?) on the TV. Your mom went to his side and said 'Brian, you have a visitor'. Your dad looked at me and I said 'Carpe Diem, Mr. Randall. It's Ray.' He looked at me and said 'Ray'.
Your mom then asked if he had just said something and I told her that he said my name. It was then that she told me about his recent issues with swallowing and speaking and how she had to call for hospice care. That he had only started verbally communicating again that day. He looked at your mom and said 'who called hospice?' She said she had. He then continued to watch TV.
Your mom stayed for about 10 more minutes and we chatted. She relayed how hard it has been for her. How she visits most days. She started crying as she told me this and then reiterated how happy she was that I was visiting. She said I could pop by the house any time I wanted. If she wasn't there, she was probably visiting your dad. I told her that I had started writing a letter to her, but I couldn't find the words. We had a long hug and I told her that I was happy to have run into her. I let her know that she could leave and I would stay with your dad for a while.
After your mom left, I pulled up a chair and sat next to your dad. He was watching TV and would occasionally look over at me. There wasn't much that would lead me to think he recognized me. I asked if he still followed the market and he said 'everyday'. I asked if he still followed any other news but he didn't respond...
The other thing that my dad said that surprised me because of the cognizance it showed was his identifying an old towel I had grabbed from out of the car in order to wipe down the chair I wanted to sit in.
"Looks like one of our old towels," he said.
It took me a moment to process what he had said but he was correct. It's an old Ralph Lauren beige hand towel from what is now his old house, Rockingham. The towel is about a third of the size of a bath owl, much larger than a square washcloth. Something like a foot by two feet.
That towel must be thirty years old, which is part of why I like them so much. They're useful. Wiping, drying, cleaning up, covering up. They can serve as your only towel if you happen to— Sneeeeeze!!! My dad rips off one of his patented loud sneezes and the pen jolts in my hand, skittering across the page. My dad is still one of the loudest sneezers around.
"Have any memorable meals lately?" I ask him.
"Fish with tartar sauce, two tartars," he tells me.
"Last night?"
"That could have been."
He's sharper today, no doubt. Down the road I could see myself working here. I'd volunteer or maybe take a part-time job. If they wanted another groundskeeper on staff who would also work as a porter, transporting Dammert residents to lunch and back. I'd fill in this pock-marked concrete. Do some hedge trimming. Sweeping...
"I look around at these two guys," he says, "And I wonder, 'Are they ever gonna be included in something as big as this?'"
The food arrives and Bob looks my way.
"I don't really want this," he says, and starts laughing.
I take this opportunity to ask him about his tattoo. Was it from his military days? He doesn't answer the question. It's the only time he's ever seemed to evade a question, or appearing to do so. He starts talking about his son fixing up houses. "They were small hands but many," he says. Then, "That's one thing I like about this place. It's clean."
I listen to lunch room sounds. One of the CNAs is encouraging one of three Helens (in this case, the mayor's daughter) to eat her food. Helen replies in her soft-spoken manner, "I'd better not. I don't want to throw up here. Everyone will look at me." The only thing she eats is the ice cream.
Then, a commotion from out in the hall, a racket.
"What the...?!" Bob exclaims. "It sounded like about two or three horses or something." Then he sneezes. "Oooh, that one came out fast," he says.
Bob ate the garlic bread, a little bit of pasta, and the ice cream. "Ice cream's ice cream," he says. "But this is pretty good."
I went over to the main dining room and got a plate of my own. Pizza spaghetti they call it. I ate everything on the plate save one pepperoni. My dad ate everything except one slice of zucchini. It's the Patsy Cline CD playing today. Bob knows these lyrics, some of them. He sings along. When the last song on the CD stops playing he says, "So there."
Genevieve, the 98-year-old woman hunched over in her usual windbreaker outfit makes her way out by taking tiny steps with her dangling wheelchair feet, quiet as a cloud except when she catches one of the CNAs on her way out and asks for a Honey Nut Cheerios to go.
"We enjoyed lunch with you, Bob," my dad tells his lunch mate.
"When was that?" asks Bob.
"Today," says dad.
"Oh, ha. Ha ha. Thank you, thank you very much," says Bob.
But we don't get going just yet. It's quiet now in the lunch room. The sound of wind chimes comes from outside, past the glass. My dad is starting to doze off. Bob is picking at his teeth, wiping clean the glasses he lost for a few days last week.
"I think I'm gonna go downstairs," Bob says. "I don't know if I've been down there. I thought I had. I'll probably make a new, or I don't know. As far as I knew, we hadn't used that, or we wished it away. I'm goin' downstairs. Anybody left? Hello, hello. I'm goin' down..."
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