Rotten Memories

My maternal grandparents, Madeleine and Sylva Therrien, were the nicest people in my life. They’d often help everyone they knew and their generosity knew no limits. As they got older, everything they ever owned, accomplished, or desired was slowly stripped away. Whether it be the house they built and lived in for thirty years, the fishing boat Syl used extensively during his retirement, their driver’s licenses, all the way down to their hearing, eye sight, and then finally their sanity. They were approaching seventy years of marriage when Madeleine suffered an injury that left her bedridden. In her early nineties, she had to be moved to an assisted living facility. Syl, also in his early nineties, followed soon after because he was completely unable to care for himself. By the way, ‘Assisted Living’ is just a nice way of describing an understaffed hospital without the fancy equipment and an extremely high death rate.

My parents pressured me to attend Camosun College to further my education in exchange for free rent. The assisted living facility just happened to be down the street from the Lansdowne campus I’d be attending, so my parents pressured me to visit my grandparents at least three to four times a week for over two years. If I didn’t go, my father would have to and he hated going as much as I did. He’d come home angry and never failed to dump what had happened during his visit on me. Every day I didn’t go, Madeleine would either call me or my mom to ask when I would be visiting again. Both women would shower me with compliments, but then put me through unspeakable traumatic experiences. I had to watch my grandparents’ bodies get ravaged by time and decay in front of my eyes. I had to watch their brains get decimated by dementia, turn into heaping piles of black sludge, and socialize with the misfiring synapses that remained. I wasn’t allowed to say no, or that I didn’t want to go. Nobody held a knife to my throat or a gun to my head, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. My parents pressured me to visit because of some delusional and twisted definition of familial obligations. I soon realized they were training me for the inevitable reality they’ll one day face. Every time I entered that grey painted, single floored, outdated, and depressing building, the smell of urine, feces, and bleach attacked my nostrils like an invisible toxic smoke. I always envied those without a sense of smell.

-

I was at the facility the day Syl arrived. My mother and her brother left the facility at the same time leaving me alone to orientate Syl to his new living space. He’d been inside this facility a couple of dozen times to visit his wife, but he was extremely confused and didn’t recognize anything. He knew something was wrong, but couldn’t communicate that feeling out loud. His room was across the hall and two rooms over from Madeleine’s shared room. He didn’t have far to go to see a familiar face, even if he didn’t know who it belonged to. Syl’s room lacked any decorations of any kind and the counters were missing the stereotypical framed pictures of loved ones and cards received for numerous special occasions. The room was split in two by a thin green plastic sheet attached to a rail, and his half of the room is closest to the door. I sat with Syl on his bed.

     “At least you don’t have far to walk to visit Madeleine.”

     He laughed once, “Yep. She’s the boss!”

     “It’s going to be okay, Syl. All you have to do is go down the hallway to see her.”

     “Yep.” His good eye darted around trying to scan his new environment.

     I immediately recognized the roommate when I walked into the room because of all the time I spent at the facility. I didn’t know his name even though it’s displayed right next to the door. He’s strapped into a heavy duty green and black wheelchair just like every other time I’d seen him. His eyes were shut, he rocked back and forth, and mumbled incoherently, just like every other time I’d seen him. Every so often, he blurted out nonsensical gibberish at the top of his lungs. At the moment, he quietly played with an empty green plastic cup by placing it on one brake handle and then the other. He started rocking faster and faster and the pauses between his mumbles were getting shorter and shorter. He managed to undo his waist restraint and stood up. An obnoxious alarm attached to his wheelchair revealed his movements.

Adam, an awe inspiring nurse, walked up to the door, “I’ll be right there! I’ve got one on the pot, and one down the hall waiting to get on the pot. Less than 2 minutes.”

The alarm continued to chirp.

“Let’s go talk with Madeleine for a bit.” I suggested.

“Okay”

Syl slowly stood up and we made our way towards the door. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see that man pull his pants and diaper down. He then urinated onto his bed, and then defecated onto his pants and the floor. Luckily, Syl didn’t see any of this, and we kept walking like nothing happened. Later that day, I informed my mother of what occurred, and the facility quickly relocated Syl to a new room with a better roommate.

-

 I can’t remember that roommate’s name either, even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times, but I think it might have been Matthew. Matthew was very friendly, but needed tons of help. He asked everyone for help, and I did what I could if it was a small request, but I often had to remind him that I wasn’t an employee. A couple of uneventful months go by, but I happened to be in the room visiting Syl when Matthew’s journey through life was coming to an end.

Matthew’s side of the room was decorated with about thirty small black plastic pots that contained live ferns and colorful flowers. They were attached to the walls, and sat on the window sill, on his side table, and on the counter next to his bed. Obscured by the thin plastic curtain, I could tell that he was laying down on his bed and was desperate to speak, but his lips didn’t form any words. His labored breaths hissed and crackled through his parched respiratory tract. His daughter was there. She was wearing a long dark green dress with bright flower patterns on it. She absolutely loved her father. She spoke with a heavily tattooed female staff member I had only seen once before. The staff member wore a black tuque, a blue jean jacket vest over a black t-shirt, black cargo shorts, black boots, and black latex gloves.

“Do you want water? Here. WATER.” His daughter offered him the straw one of the many cups of water peppered around his side of the room.

“We should move him to our private room, so you can be with him privately.” The staff member spoke softly.

“Okay.”

The staff member walked into the hallway and grabbed another employee. They respectively and carefully moved Matthew in his bed out into the hallway and down the hall. The faint squeak of the wheels on the linoleum floor was the only sound other than Matthew’s breathing.

I called my mom and told her the news. Syl and Madeleine were officially reunited a week or so later.

-

I ended up visiting the facility so often that even some of the most forgetful patients recognized me.

     I just spent an hour with my grandparents. I shook Syl’s hand and then leaned over Madeleine’s bed so that she could give me a kiss on the cheek. I checked my pockets for my phone and wallet. I walked out into the hallway and locked eyes with a frail old woman in a wheelchair inching her way towards me. A large bloodstained bandage covered a gaping wound underneath her right eye. The eye itself was just as glazed over as a double dipped doughnut. I politely nodded my head and smiled. She maintained eye contact with me and turned her wheelchair as I walked past her.

“How do I get out of here!?” she yelled.

I widened my stride and quickened my pace towards the exit.

“I know you can leave! HOW DO I GET OUT OF HERE!?” she screamed.

Her voice echoed through my body as I exited the building. She reminded me of a caged animal begging to be released. My lack of a reaction gave the impression that she was speaking a different language, just like the cries of an imprisoned beast.

-

     My parents were away vacationing in Europe. My phone rang and I immediately recognized the number, it was Madeleine. I sighed deeply and answered her call.

     “Your grandpa won’t eat his food and the staff don’t help. I’m really worried about him, so I need you to come over and help him eat dinner.” The desperation in her voice practically oozed out of the phone and into my ear. I agreed to help like an idiot who wasn’t allowed to say no. This was now the sixth day in a row that I’d accepted to help.

I walked through both sets of doors at the main entrance, past the nurse’s station and the ever-changing group of wheelchair bound patients in the main lobby. I walked past the cleaning crews and the numerous wandering patients until I reached my grandparents’ room.

     “Hello! How are you guys today?” I asked.

     “Were much better now that you’re here.” Madeleine replied.

     “Syl, are you ready to go eat dinner?” I asked.

     “Yep.” Syl replied, “But how do I get outta here? I want to go home.”

     I looked straight into his cloudy yellow eyes and placed my right hand on his bony shoulder. “This is your home now, Syl. This is where you live. This is where all your stuff is, and your wife lives here too.”

“Oh, okay. But how do I get outta here? I want to go home.”

My heart shattered into a trillion pieces and my eyes began to drown in tears. “Excuse me, I have to go make a call.” A lump in my throat swelled up and felt like it was a grapefruit covered in red-hot spikes. I walked into the central courtyard and called my uncle. The intense emotion in my voice made him jump into his car to come talk with me.

As I waited, my grandparents’ night nurse walked through the courtyard. She wore a bright blue nurse’s uniform, had dirty blond hair, rosy red cheeks, and was roughly the same age as me.

“Oh no! What happened?” She asked.

In between sobs, I told her about the entire situation, some of my psychological difficulties, my current attempt to sober up, and my doubts about being able to remain sober.

“I don’t want to see you here again this week!”

“But I already said I’d come tomorrow.”

“That doesn’t matter! Just say something came up. You need a break from them and all of this stuff.” She offered me a hug which I gladly accepted.

I wiped away my tears and thanked her for the kind words. That was the first hug I had in well over five years. I didn’t know how much I needed one, or how effective they were. My uncle arrived a few minutes later and we sat down to talk in the courtyard. Madeleine called me dozens of times in a row. I didn’t answer. 

He pointed at my phone, “Block her number right now! This is obviously taking a huge toll on you. You know about my sour relationship with my parents and how I handle it, but you need to do what’s right for you. It’s not your job to take care of your grandparents!”

That was the last day I ever saw my grandparents. I didn’t help Syl eat dinner, say goodbye or that I loved them. I cut them out of my life and lied that I was too busy to visit. Madeleine eventually stopped calling me after about a month, and then passed away suddenly a couple of weeks later. I got out of the conflict, but the indescribable things I saw, the unspeakable things I heard, the nauseating things I smelled, and the overwhelming feelings of guilt still haunt me. Two incredibly vivid images stuck with me. The first is of my bedridden grandmother’s emaciated body, her desire to die, and her ability to remember practically everything. The second is of my grandfather sitting next to her on his trusty black walker, his unwavering love, and his ability to forget just about everything. I recently wrote each of them a letter that I’ll never send.

-

Dear Syl, you’ll never read or hear these words because you’re blind and deaf. My parents forced me to visit you and your wife at the facility that neither of you would ever leave alive. You had absolutely no idea who I was, but you enjoyed the visits anyway and you were always pleasant. You always agreed to walk a couple laps around the inside of the building, or walk down the street to sit on a bench and watch the cars go by, weather permitting of course. I didn’t mind that you would always repeat the same stories, but dementia eventually stole all those too. Like when you were the Vancouver Island Manager for that widely successful plumbing company. The pension from that amazing career is still paying for your care. You were a big shot, the boss, El Presidenté, until you forgot about all that too. Dementia stole everything from you except a tiny piece of your humor and your ability to follow your wife’s orders. I’m sorry I stopped visiting you, but I did what was right for me. I couldn’t handle witnessing your tragic and painfully slow demise any longer. I’ll never forget the look in your eyes when you’d get confused, and then how frustrated you became with yourself. I’ll always remember your facial expressions when you would gush out utter gibberish, and then your desperate and futile attempts to communicate correctly. I’ll remember your attempts to leave the facility to go back to your old house, that you would fall down regularly, and that you kept getting urinary tract infections that made your symptoms a thousand times worse. I wish Madeleine had been nicer to you, she was always quick to criticize your actions, your behavior, and she always told you what to do. I wish I could have spent more time with you before your brain turned into garbage. My mom just asked me if I would use that small TV we had purchased for your room. I don’t think you have anything else left. As I write this you are still alive, but I hope your torment will be over soon. That way you can be with your wife again, and you can finally be at peace. I know she’s waiting for you up in heaven with a glass of your favorite drink; two shots of rye, on the rocks.

Good bye forever old fella. You were the best person in my life.

Sincerely, your loving grandson and young fella,

Tim Migeon

-

Dear Madeleine, you’ll never read or hear these words because you’ve been dead for almost a year now. The last years of your life were absolutely awful and you let everybody around you know that you were ready to die. Anybody bedridden in their nineties would likely do the same. My parents forced me to visit you, but I wish I could’ve cut you out of my life years ago like I’d wanted to. Practically every time I visited you, you’d tell me that you wanted to die, and you would often tell me the methods you would chose to commit suicide. Whether it was to wrap the call bell cord around your neck, or to stuff Kleenexes down your throat. But, what you didn’t know was that I had already attempted suicide twice as a teenager. Dementia destroyed who you were and made you child-like, bitter, and desperate. Our final conversation started because you called our house seven times in a row, and each time your daughter answered. She repeated herself each time, but quickly lost her composure. She yelled at you the exact same way she yelled at me when I was a kid. She demanded that you not call again that evening. She then suggested taking away your phone to my father, who replied that you were really losing it. I called you and apologized for my mother’s behavior on behalf of my entire side of the family. You kept it between us and then you begged me to come visit you before you died. I told you I would when I had the time, but I lied. I promised myself not to visit anymore under any circumstances, and that’s exactly what I did. You were an incredibly toxic person who constantly manipulated me into doing things the medical staff refused to do or didn’t have the time to do. Regardless of how I feel about it, your impact on my extended family was monumental. What you achieved in your lifetime will completely eclipse anything your descendants could possibly do. We’re all here because of you and your love. It’s just too bad your love was corrupted and corroded into something else. Something that would often look like love, but would actually damage those exposed to it. These rotten memories will haunt me until the day I die.

Goodbye forever Madeleine. When I was younger, you were nicer to me than my mom.

Sincerely, your loving grandson,

Tim Migeon