Oh Very Young

Not the kind of 62nd birthday anyone plans for.

Photo by Nickie Joseph on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I was visiting Mike at the same time a member of the kitchen staff was delivering the snack cart to the memory care neighborhood. Snack time is 2:30, so I generally try to time my visits right before (so I can leave Mike occupied with his snack) or right after that. Under no circumstances do I attempt to interfere with snack time.

The staff member smiled at me, then said “Mr. Mike, you have a visitor!”

I hadn’t met her before, so I didn’t know how often she saw Mike—often enough to know him by name, obviously, but not so often that we’d crossed paths. Most of the staff members I encounter on a typical visit, from the concierge at the front desk to the memory care aides (as well as some of the assisted living aides who used to work in memory care), know who I am and why I’m there.

“Is Mr. Mike your dad?” she asked.

I was taken off guard by that question—I’d never been asked that before—so I didn’t answer right away. My hesitation prompted her to rephrase.

“I mean, is he your family member?”

“Mike’s my husband,” I said, turning to look at him and rub his back, kiss the side of his head. I try not to talk about him as if he’s not sitting right beside me, even though he can no longer participate in whatever conversation is taking place around him.

Then I turned back to the staff member and returned her smile, so she’d know she wasn’t in trouble. I wasn’t offended by her initial question—just surprised. Either I look much younger than I think I do or (more likely) illness and context make Mike look older than he is.

“Oh!” Her eyes flew open. “Then he’s very young!”

She was making assumptions again, apparently assigning whatever age she thought I was to Mike as well. But I nodded my agreement, because she was right. 61 is very young to be in memory care.

Mike turned 62 last weekend, which means he’s now legit: he’s no longer in need of the policy waiver that allowed him to move into his apartment last October. But I’m pretty sure he’s still the youngest person at the facility.

On the morning of his birthday, our kids drove down from Austin. The four of us— our son, our daughter, her partner and I—had Mexican takeout for lunch, then ferried birthday treats to the facility. I’d bought a package of frosted sugar cookies with rainbow sprinkles, one of Mike’s favorite things, and easy for him to eat. Our son brought a package of miniature cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles as well. Birthdays, he said, require cake.

Sadly, Mike was not having a good day. He seemed very tired. He was confused by the fact that I wanted him to sit at a table with us and wouldn’t let him wander off, which is what he really wanted to do. I remembered to introduce him to everyone at the table rather than asking Do you know who this is? Then I prompted the kids to tell him about what was going on in their lives. I offered him sips of the Gatorade I’d brought along, to help him swallow. I took a cookie from the package and broke it into smaller pieces he could manage without choking.

We stayed for maybe half an hour, and Mike was intent on getting up from the table for most of that time. We enticed him to stay in his chair with treats and pictures, but when he bent his chin to his chest and started slowly rubbing the sides of his head, as though the whole ordeal of this visit was giving him a headache, we took our cue. I walked him to his room and got him settled in for a nap.

Back at home, we were all quietly processing our feelings until I spoke up.

“Well,” I said, “that was sad. I’m sorry Dad wasn’t having a better day.”

My daughter shrugged.

“It is sad,” she said. “But I was reminding myself this morning that we had a really good visit with him on Father’s Day, and I knew it was pretty unlikely that we were going to get two good visits in a row.”

My son nodded. “These days, you just have to be prepared for whatever you get when you go see him. We all know that.”

My son is the person who reminded me, after another difficult visit, that this situation would be sad even if Mike were still living at home with us.

“It doesn’t matter where Dad is,” he’d said. “The sad part is what’s happening to him, and that would be happening no matter where he lives.”

Sometimes I wonder whether Mike’s age is part of what makes it so difficult for some people to believe me when I tell them that he made me promise to do exactly what I’ve done: to place him in memory care when he declined to the point that he needed the level of constant attention he now requires.

“But surely you don’t believe he meant that,” someone said. “He was just thinking of you. I can’t imagine anyone would want to be in a place like that.”

There are many things I think but do not say, in moments like this. For instance: Of course you can’t imagine. You have a healthy brain. But if you end up with some first-hand knowledge of what dementia is going to do to you, then maybe you’ll also start to consider what your decline is going to do to the people you love.

This is what I say instead: I never knew Mike to be a person who lied to me, not about anything. Certainly he would not have lied about something this important, because he knew me to be a person who kept her word whenever possible. That’s why he asked me to do what I’ve done—so he could feel secure in knowing I would be okay.

The last time I talked to my sister-in-law, after I’d told her about this birthday visit, she said “I want you to hear me say this: I completely trust that you are carrying out Mike’s wishes. I know you’re doing what you believe is best for him. I know you always have. And I want you to know that I have never once doubted that.”

I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear those words from someone. Not until I started tearing up when she said them.