Jeff Belden

[I wrote this on July 13, 2015, but never posted it then. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But instead, Dad miraculously left death’s embrace. For two and a half more years. The last paragraph still applies.]

My father is almost 88 years old, he's had Alzheimer's disease for several years, and now he has pneumonia, the old man's friend.

He had barely moved into the memory care unit, where he would have a closer knit community to watch over him. When I came to find him on Sunday to take him out to lunch, he was sunk deeply into a low-slung soft couch in a very deep sleep. Not unexpectedly, he was hard to arouse, and even harder to bring to his feet. He seemed barely able to command his body to walk. He even seemed short of breath walking his tiny little steps. After some investigation, it became apparent that he has pneumonia and his oxygen level drops low when he walks.

His facial expression was saying "I can't breathe" but his meager complaint was "oh", [step], "oh", [step], "oh", [step] with each breath, with each step. He just wanted to pause a moment, as if to say, "if you let me rest a moment, I'll be fine".

Our life together the past four years has been going out to lunch, having a ride in my car, and going to the park to see little children to smile and chat with. We both got a lot of pleasure out of those weekend visits.

Yesterday though, I spent a lot more time witnessing his daily activity of walking and eating and finding the chair and finding the bed. All of those are pretty difficult now. Despite the difficulty, it was pretty easy to admire him. His complaints of discomfort were almost imperceptible. If we managed to get him to look up at us, a smile always came to his face.

His suffering is plain to see though, in this final illness. We always knew a day like this would come. We didn't know it would be now. My brother and sister, my wife, and other close relatives are rallying to support dad. In a few days I'm sure my work community will pick up the slack when I'm gone for a few days. Our neighbors will offer to help. People will offer their condolences. People will smile and recollect their stories of my father, appreciating who he was and what he did for them. We will all come together to smile softly and whisper one last goodbye.

[originally posted August 26 2011, 7:10 AM]

Some days it's a scarce commodity. Or misplaced. 

My 84 year-old father is confident he can drive just fine, thank you. He may be right. In the daytime, in good weather, on a familiar road shared by responsible, attentive, sober fellow drivers. 

But he has Alzheimer's Disease, and I don't feel confident about his safety or the public safety. 

Neither of us are confident that he will remember where he hid that last wad of cash he withdrew from the bank. 

He's generally a quite agreeable person, attuned to the comfort of others. I'm losing confidence that he will go along with his hired care-giver when they suggest that it may be too slick or icy this winter when he's hell-bent on taking a walk to "clear his head". 

I'm confident that today will be one of the most challenging days of my life. My brother and sister and I will spend the day with Dad, telling him about his fairly new diagnosis, what it means, how much we love him and care about his safety, and about the difficult decision we've been wrestling with for months. This will be the last day he will live in the house where He spent the last 60 years. It is moving day. He doesn't know yet. On the sage advice of geriatrician colleagues, we decided to have one difficult conversation, rather than repeat a series of misremembered painful ones. 

I'm not completely confident this is the right decision. It's permeated with ambiguity. 

Will this day be filled with tears, tenderness, integrity, and loving-kindness? I'm confident of that.