Naturally, when my father passed away in a nursing home, one week before his 99th birthday, a lot of people asked if it was Covid-19 that took him. No, it really wasn't. He died of "natural causes", the way we all pray we will, in his own way, at his own pace. But, yes, Covid most certainly did take him. He wanted to live to be at least 100. Had he truly gotten his way, he most assuredly would not have died so close to entering his one hundredth year. Not this man. Then, why have I changed my mind?
Dementia is a wonderful thing, when one is ready to accept it, it wipes away so much of the alternate world. My dad, along with countless others who reside in long-term care facilities, suffered from Dementia and time, or the perception of it, escaped him. Every visit, I would give him a kiss on his forehead and say "see ya tomorrow". At which he would respond "okay, Sweetie", and off I would go, fifteen minute visit ended, until days later when I would return. In the days before Dementia, I oftentimes would be greeted with "where've you been?" But as the gears shifted, if you asked him, he would have told you that he and I chatted daily, in person.
My father's days were long, from my perspective. To him, they were relatively short. He got up when he pleased, went through, with assistance, the arduous process of getting groomed and dressed, ate breakfast, got some morning entertainment, ate lunch, got some afternoon entertainment, dinner and then to bed. A full day, filled with other residents who were doing exactly the same thing, and outside entertainers, staff members and family members (other people's families), who made the gap times shorter and the days so much happier. Small reasons to remain alive, but he felt alive and looked forward to the routine which validated his life while all the while, thinking that any day, he would be going home. Never, in two years, did we let him think differently. Never, did we tell him that he was "home", that his house had been sold and the profit converted into his monthly care. We never allowed him to abandon that hope, that belief that one day he would be back in his own chair, looking out his own window. Any day, yes, any day, he would return to that, his Paradise. That kept him alive. That gave him hope. That made him fail to realize that he had been at his current residence almost two years, not the few weeks that if he were asked, he would vouch for.
In the earliest days of Covid, the administration of his facility decided to shut their doors to the outside world. I would tell you that my last visit, in person, face to face with a good-bye kiss, was around Valentine's Day. The doors were shut, the staff masked up, no contacts were allowed until further notice. No cards, packages, signs of life from beyond their own rooms. Isolated for their own good. Days on end, without much more than four walls. There was no way my father could be convinced to watch daytime T.V. No way that he would be able to handle a phone call. Finally, a system was put into place for FaceTime calls once a week. The technology failed him. He stared into the staff member's Iphone and asked most times, to have it "turned off". He had no idea of how few and precious the contacts with those who loved him would be.
The weeks, months, dragged on. Finally, weekly visits, outdoors, were permitted. Those were difficult for so many reasons. Masked, seated six feet away, I had to yell above the sound of traffic and the lawn mower, finally just giving up after twenty minutes at the most each time. He had enough after five minutes. Waves good-bye. And then, eventually, weekly indoor visits were back and each time, his voice grew weaker and weaker and his remarks about going home became the only ones he made. He seemed more determined than ever. And I, I understood better, that determination. The cloak of Dementia was slowly slipping off, as if it were made of silk. The one item in his wheelhouse that kept him alive and well was being over-run by cruel reality. His once easy distractions, went missing. No more communal meals, no more outside entertainers, no more "daily" visits from his daughter, no more, no more. Reality, the last shred, set in.
My father died with dignity. I was with him til almost the very last breath. I knew he waited for me. I felt a tiny squeeze from his exhausted hand. I knew that he was giving me a message. He didn't want to continue living this way. He was bored and broken. He thought it was going to be so different, in his younger days. Approaching one hundred wasn't what it was cracked up to be. Isolation robbed him of his ability to perceive his current situation as temporary. With each passing, lonely, long day, it became abundantly clear that he was in the wrong place. He left the Covid World for a better world. Maybe.
