Reflections of a Caretaker

Long hesitation precedes this effort at my personal reflections. I hesitate because I wish to avoid the painful moments that must accompany the joys I hope to include in this recollection. I think differently or maybe I just think I do now about the choices I’ve made in my life that bring me to this point of reflection.

I’m in Acton, California on my mechanic’s ranch in an old RV with a blown engine and my wife who is dying of dementia. I am really slow getting moving today sitting on the foot edge of the bed at the back of our Coronado RV. I’m half-dressed with socks and pants and batting away a persistence fly as my wife begins her humming and so I know she is awake and I know it’s time to feed her breakfast even though it’s half past noon.

I think about how I'm going to murder the fly as I fish for a shirt in my over crowded closet. Reaching for my favorite hundred percent cotton long sleeve shirt, I decide on a t-shirt instead since I will be working outside trying to restore marine batteries making them viable enough so that the work I’m doing on my 22 foot cabin cruiser can progress without putting out a couple hundred dollars for a good battery.

“Who is there?” my bedridden wife asks in a clear tone. I am startled as she has not been verbal for months now with the occasional unintelligible sentence a few times a day.

Delighted at this chance to communicate, I cheerfully answer with pretend drama, “Why it is I, your husband... whose name escapes me… no it it is Mitch and I am preparing your oatmeal of cinnamon and spice and everything nice just for you!” and I muse in silence, merging two common phrases; because that's what little girls are made of and you are what you eat.

I will have to let the oatmeal cool then I will see if I have to feed it to her or if today she remembers how to use a spoon.

When she was unable to walk anymore I set up her bed on the motorhome's fold-out couch and when hospice came, they provided an inflatable mattress to help prevent bedsores.

From there she has a view out the large front windshield and the side window where she can see the sky and clouds and hear the rustle of the leaves on a tree when the wind blows.

I know she is close to death but I take comfort in the fact she is about as happy as I have ever seen her, not scared or even aware of her pending death and free of pain.

I’ve had years to come to terms with losing my best friend. I can’t change losing her bit by bit as her brilliant mind and tremendous heart gets eaten away until all that remains is just a shell; just a reminder of who she used to be in a body that doesn’t know she is already gone.

This disease is called ‘the long goodbye’ and I wonder if, when her body gives out, I will have any tears left to shed.

She hums. All night most nights. Now she hums today as her oatmeal had cooled enough to feed her. None of the humming is a tune. Just a single hum. Then 4 long same note tones like she is imitating a fog horn. Then 2 notes a third higher. Silence. No pattern except the pattern of no pattern. It seems like it would drive me crazy but it doesn't. I don't know why it doesn't. Then the humming begins again.

I am in the habit of writing things down so I don’t have to keep them in my head. Part of why I’m writing this is so that I don’t have to have these thoughts swirling in my head. Once I can pluck out my ideas and put them to paper I don’t have to remember them. I use it as a kind of mental decluttering. Clearing these thoughts helps me focus on the day.

I had to feed her the first bite and she laughed. She put the string – woven as a tassel – that she had carefully pulled off her Indian style blanket into her mouth. I gently fished it out and suggested that she eat her oatmeal, instead. We smiled at each other for a moment. Today she can feed herself so I let her do as much as she can.

The pesky fly had decided to light on Kathy's uncovered leg and, just for a moment, I contemplate striking.

Patience, I tell myself. I will have to bide my time and plan whether to open the door to usher the fly out (risking more flies entering) or hunt down the fly and squash it like… well like the bug that it is. A cold, calculating, predatory fly murder—film at eleven. I cover Kathy's uncovered leg and wait.

I went over to retrieve the bowl and spoon from Kathy’s breakfast and spied now two flies on her legs once again her legs are uncovered. Reaching for the fly swatter I always have hanging on a peg by the door, it wasn’t there.

I have to revise my thought that I always hang it up because apparently I’m wrong. I remember now that yesterday’s fly hunt was inconclusive so as I waited for the fly to come to me, I put the flyswatter down on a chair where I could easily reach it. While waiting, then distracted by other projects in mind, I’d failed to remember to hang the flyswatter up.

One of the flies landed on the top edge of the bed guard I use to keep Kathy from rolling off the couch onto the floor as she had done twice before. Just as I grasped the flyswatter handle I saw the fly land and in a smooth and lightning fast arc, I swung the weapon and killed the fly who had taunted me. Maybe it was the second fly but no matter: I will get that one, too.

“It's weird” Kathy said. “What's weird?”, I asked. “It’s something he has to be to.” “She got something, I don't know what, OK?”

“Yes”, I answered. It did no good to try for clarification.

The fly just landed on my notepad and my flyswatter is hanging up out of reach. I decide to use my hand in the old fashioned way but thinking that my closed hand would have an airfoil that might allow the fly to escape in the air flow, I thought I would spread my fingers slightly to allow the wind to pass through my fingers like a fly swatter’s air vents.

I moved in as closely as I thought I could without alerting the fly. I slammed my hand onto the fly and when I removed my hand, I turned up my palm and found the fly been killed by the pad of my index finger. Today’s hunt was a complete success.

The trash is full of diapers and urine soaked disposable pads designed to absorb urine and feces like a dog pad called chuks. I’ve become fairly nose blind to the smell but it is so strong I am bothered by it now so I will take the bag 100 or so yards to the property’s big blue trash bin and get on with another day -- one day closer to the darkness my wife, my friend is slipping into and that eventually takes us all.