Lonely Seniors Die Sooner
I saw this several years ago on the side of a cab or a bus in Vancouver, B.C. when I was there with friends. I think the quote was a part of a United Way Campaign. I jotted it down for the Boy. At the time, he was part of a First Lego League (FLL) team and the theme was "Senior Solutions." The goal was to create a project that would made seniors feel more connected, independent and engaged.
I think about my Dad. Which should he abide by: 'Til Death Do us Part or Lonely Seniors Die Sooner?
I was talking to my friend, Eleanor. She is ninety-five, a year or two younger than my grandfather would have been if he were still alive. She asked about my recent visit to my parents.
"My mom recognized me, I think," I said. "She smiled as if she recognized me when she saw me. It was better than my visit in January when it took her awhile to figure out who I was.
"My father visits her everyday and spoon feeds her lunch. His goal is to get her to eat and drink," I said.
Eleanor says whatever comes to mind. If she changes her opinion, she is quick to share that, too.
"He views her as a child, an infant," she said. "He still may love her, but he can't see her anymore as his wife."
Eleanor doesn't know my parents specifically--her opinion is based on data she has collected over decades. Even still, I had never thought of my parents like that. Whether or not it is true, it is a fact my father is lonely and my mother isn't in a position to meet his needs. He can feed her and try to make her smile, but that is about it in terms of him meeting her needs. My father told Jack that he thinks my mother views him as one of her many caretakers. My mother first forgot she was married to my father years ago. They were in Florida for a few weeks in the winter and she asked him where he lived and told him abut her kids. He was shocked that she didn't know they were married. When they returned to Ohio, she understood she was married to him, but it would come and go, like someone losing a radio signal when driving out of town. There might be a blip for a few seconds when the station is gone, but then it comes back, slowing fading into static.
So where does this leave him, in this horrible middle ground of being married and being single at the same time? "'Til Death Do Us Part" was written in an era when the average marriage lasted a short time because one of the partners would either die in childbirth, of disease, or in war. They didn't expect there to be this extended phase where people's bodies outlive their minds. My dad said he felt like he was abandoning her when he left her at the Memory Care Unit, but her daily living needs exceeded what he could do. At what point does he get to have a life?
Part of me thinks it would be okay for my dad to seek companionship. My mom hasn't been an equal partner for a long time, and as the ad on the bus said, "Lonely Seniors Die Sooner." The other part of me wonders about practicalities and logistics. While my friend Eleanor thinks that a man in my father's position wouldn't think of a woman he spoon-feeds as his wife, my father might be the exception. Is it fair to another woman to live in my mother's shadow? What would happen to the woman he is dating when my mother dies? How would he grieve?
The bigger issue this raises for me has nothing to do with my parents: it has to do with me and Jack. I worry less about Jack wandering to the fog than me. When would it be okay for him to start dating if I were the gomer? I fear giving my dad my blessing as Jack might assume I am giving him the same blessing decades in the future, but without the same parameters. Would Jack feel free of the bonds of marriage the day I forget where I was yesterday? The first time I forget who he is? I fear I might get dropped much sooner than might be considered appropriate or reasonable, if there is such a thing. I don't want to be abandoned if I were to decline into mental decrepitude. For my mother, it was a slow and gradual decline. She would forget, but then she would remember.
I told my father my fears that Jack might abandon me at my first whiff of senility.
"I don't think so," he said. "You really don't know how you will respond to that situation until you are in it."
Bizarrely, my mother probably has a better social life than my dad. She is surrounded by caretakers, nurses and other residents of the Memory Care Unit all day. She eats three meals a day with her friend Kate and she hangs out in the living room with the other residents most of the time. Loneliness won't be the cause of my mother's death. But what about my dad?
