"Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories"

Book Excerpt: Chapter 17

What Happened To Brad?

Dad was agitated. I could tell by his jerky movements, his flushed skin. He was perched on the edge of his lift chair, shuffling though a pile of papers on his knees, some of which were spilling onto the floor. A table on his left was covered with sticky folders and curled, spotted business papers. Three overstuffed brief cases and a file gaped open, more papers crouched under the sink and huddled under his chair. Juice-soaked business cards stuck to the wheeled table on his right, joined by his candy basket, call-light, tissue box. He looked up hopefully as I walked into his room.

“Good. There you are,” he said. “I need you to...to...take some, uh, some, dic...oh...some dictation.”

I caught a sigh before it escaped and replaced it with a smile and breezy attitude, as I kissed him hello.

“Sure. I can do that anytime. How are you?”

His eyes were red and unfocused, the look of his very delusional phase – as opposed to his somewhat delusional phase. My mission was to tame the tigers in his brain, so he can relax for a time.

“What I need is a list. The city commissioners. A list of them because of the elephants. I need you to write a...oh, a...a.. you know what I need, just write a...a...pro...pro....”

“A proposal?” I ask. “Sure, I can write a proposal. You want the commissioners to get an elephant for the city?”

“We’ve been working on it,” he answered. “But no! Not the...not the commissioners, but I’ve been working on... I’ve been asked... they’ve asked me to get an elephant and be a part....”

My brain searched for answers as it tried to separate the scrambled images Dad was relating. I got out the yellow legal pad he keeps by his chair, and began taking dictation. His fingers are numb and his eyes, ears, and brain are marginal, but tools for his work he must have.

“We are getting a new zoo, which is no longer a city project, but there is a zoo board. I’ll bet you’re working with them to bring in an elephant,” I said. I was beginning to feel the effect of endorphins, a feeling that I could go the distance this time. I wrote –  elephant.

But then.

“And that Catholic prayer...the one that repeats...repeats.... ary...something, bring me that. I need that.” Considering our Presbyterian heritage, that was an unusual request, but, after six years of this, I am rarely surprised.“Oh, you mean the Hail Mary?” I ask. “Hail Mary, full of Grace? The one they say for the Rosary?”

“Yes! Yes!” he answered, looking at me as if I truly had lost my mind this time. “Yes, why do you ask?” he said.

“Sure,” I said, grateful for the Catholic friends of my childhood, and my dear Catholic friend Jane, who taught me that prayer. Dad had raised exotic ants between the windows, kept bees (who wintered in our garage), dug for fossils and scoped out the planets.  In context, his need to bring an elephant to Fargo, or to have the words to a Catholic prayer were mundane.

I wrote - Hail Mary.

“And the names of the commissioners, and their phone numbers and the addresses and where to put the elephant,” he said. I wrote - list commissioners.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have the zoo board contact you about the elephant, type up the Hail Mary, and get a list of commissioners. Will that do it?”

“I think so. Yes, good. Yes, that should be good,” he said. His color improved, the agitation slowly drained away. My jaw relaxed and I breathed more easily as I realized that today I’d won. Just for today, I had quieted the chaos.

How it rates with our members: