Wandering

I hated this stage. the chapter where it all begins to end. I hated this phase of searching eyes and in and in-and-out thoughts. I hated these repeating stories and mixed up names, but it would get worse.

 Honestly, if I had a nickel for every time someone told me it could be worse, I could pay his nursing home bills for years. “It will get worse my (so and so) forgot his name. You're lucky he's lasted this long.” frequently featured in conversational alleyways. I didn't understand how it could help me feel better to know that eventually, he would lose his mind entirely, but adults assume saying these things eased the blow, I guessed. Maybe they knew what they were doing. Maybe they had some physiological knowledge I lacked, and they knew how best to deal with this hell, but at that moment it just seemed like they just talked for the sake of the noise. Maybe drowning out their own pain. Maybe that helped.

 At the moment, I was sitting on the plush sitting room couch that would always smell like my grandmother picking at the hem of my jeans, trying to unfocus.

 I could let my imagination go wherever I want it to want it, but if all times it wouldn't. I kept listening to his voice; it sounded exactly like my dad's. Actually, my dad was like a 40-year-old version of his dad; same laugh, face, hair and voice. Physically, he was a clone, but personality-wise, my father had a competitive force for quality that he obviously got from his mother. My father now sat beside me intently, listening to the story my grandfather was telling, the tale of when Great great grandfather Eddie saved the stray dogs and took them in. I actually like his stories; I like the way he got choked up when he went talking about his dad, and I like the way he laughed at his own jokes, but I hated this. I didn't mind the fact that we had already heard the story twice today. I minded his fight to keep his train of thought clear. I hated the seconds of silence. Every quiet moment seemed to scream “DEMENTIA!!” in a nail on chalkboard voice in my ear. My poor  Jean Hem was at this point ancient history.

 I half wished I'd stayed at home and listened to sad music on top volume. Instead I was listening to sad voices mumbling and muddling through pretended normalcy. The sitting room had become a temporary stage on which he could frantically impart the untold stories that no one would ever write before it was too late and they disappeared into his receding memory. No one mustering the courage to feel. We would feel later, now was not the time. Now was the time to forget. Forget just like him, and pretend it was all fine.

God, I wanted out anyway. I didn't care; I felt trapped, and I needed an excuse to leave. I wish my brother would piss pants and force us to drive home, or my cousin would lazily demand my spot on the couch and in the conversation; or anything.

“Suck up all the time you can”, everyone told me. Make memories in a frantic and desperate year before it's too late and you'll be left with a skeleton. But of all things this was the hardest thing I could try to do. I didn't want to hear him. I hated this time, and hated myself for it. “this isn't about you.” I didn't want to be here, I wanted to disappear or else speed up time. I hated watching his life end and I hated listening to his fierce fight to maintain his current state of being. I hated everything. “no cure.” the simple two word phrase played in the back of my head again and again. “no cure. no cure. you can't fix this. no one can.” now my mind's eyes wandered. they wandered to dribbling mouths and vacant eyes, up wheelchair ramps and down streets lined with wild tales and diapers. they flew by countless nameless faceless loved ones during visiting hours and passed Barred windows. My imagination finally wandered, but it took a wrong turn, and now my body was telling me to excuse myself before the tears arrived. “You can't cry. What right do you have to cry? his son isn't crying. his wife isn't crying. He isn't crying. go take your pathetic, sensitive, selfish self to the bathroom and fix your eyes.” the voice in my head scolded. I obeyd.I knew it would take many more bathroom breaks in the years to come. I knew I would need to toughen up and adjust. I would have to find a new mindset and adapt, but at the moment, the only important thing is that no one saw my eyes welling up. The bathroom had been designed by my grandmother, and permanently smelled like roses. There were frost blue walls and a navy counter; a tiny window stood on the wall, frosted glass, blurry and swirled. An acrylic painting of an angel holding a white rose stood, three feet both ways, on the middle of one of the walls.  I didn't like that painting, but I loved the rest of the room. The colour of blue was chilly, and I didn't know why, but it seemed like it said ‘i get it. I'm not going to try to make you happy. Be sad, because you need to be sad right now.’

I knew perfectly well that colours couldn't talk, that it was telling me to be sad, but it was comforting to have something constant that could make me feel.

I sat on the toilet and looked at that colour, trying to not think. I didn't want puffed up eyes and leaking tear ducts at dinner. I needed to stop crying and start breathing, so I had to imagine that nothing was wrong. I needed to ignore the walls