Fading Away...

A very old man lives with us. Ninety-one years of memories sparkle in his brain as the connections between them begin to fray.

He can’t take care of himself anymore. On a good day he will shuffle into the kitchen, fill a little pot with water to boil an egg, make some toast and heat up his coffee in the microwave. Sometimes he forgets to turn off the stove. Sometimes he forgets how to turn on the toaster. Most days, he gets dressed, then falls asleep in his recliner, and I make him breakfast and wake him up to eat it.

His world has become very small. He watches TV, reads the paper from cover to cover, and sleeps. He does a lot of sleeping.

He was a captain in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He married his childhood sweetheart, raised two sons, built his home with his own hands. He managed a hardware store all of his working life, with a friendly smile for each customer. He could answer any number of do-it-yourself questions, and calculate complicated math problems in his head. In his 50s he took an IQ test and scored 130.

Five years ago—shortly after his wife died—he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At that point he was still driving, still living in his own house, paying his bills, cooking his meals, going out to lunch once a week with an old friend.

But slowly, relentlessly, his brain unraveled. On good days, we questioned the diagnosis. It was, after all, just his doctor’s opinion. What kind of test definitively indicates Alzheimer’s? Wouldn’t depression have the same symptoms: the forgetfulness, the lethargy? Should he be taking Prozac instead of Aricept?

His typically careful attention to finances drifted away. He forgot to pay important bills, and paid others twice. He wrote checks to any organization that asked for donations. It didn’t take them long to recognize a patsy—solicitations filled his mailbox.

Sometimes he forgot to take the medications that his son set up for him in compartmentalized boxes once a week, or forgot what day it was and took a double dose.

Always neat and tidy, he began to let the housework go. He stopped taking care of his yard. His two sons took turns cleaning his house and mowing the lawn when they could. And then one day he fell and cut his head. And we knew he couldn’t live alone anymore.

Lives changed—his, and ours. We created a private area for him in our home, where he could have his familiar bed, his chairs and couch, his pictures. At first, I was able to leave him alone for a few hours while I worked. But his need for supervision increased to the point where I had to quit my job and stay home with him.

He can’t be left alone. My husband and I go to different services at church. If we go out to eat, Dad goes with us. Our weekends hiking in the mountains are over for a season--even an hour walk in the woods behind the house could be too long. In many ways, it is like having an elderly three-year-old to care for, but different, because he is a father to be honored and respected. We count our blessings, though: he is kind, he never complains, never asks for anything. It could be a lot worse.

Sometimes I wonder what he thinks about his life. Communication is difficult; he doesn’t hear well, and often struggles to find words when he speaks. We try to provide a happy environment for him, but I really don’t know if he is happy or not. He obviously enjoys food and family, likes the dogs, and always welcomes the daily newspaper. If he is living in the eternal present, then maybe the erosion of his memory is not that significant to him. But sometimes I see him gazing at the picture of his wife on the wall, and I know he misses her.

I’ve never lived with a really old person before. There is a certain horror in watching the decline of a human being. All the years of learning, growing, living—is this how it ends? “Not with a bang, but a whimper?” Lost in fog, with the walls slowly closing in?

And no less horrifying is the realization that my husband and I are next in line for this.