Don't Forget

C/W Neglect. Domestic abuse. Physical abuse. Mental health.

The lighter flicks one to many times before the flame engulfs the end of a Marlboro Red. I breathed in the smoke, feeling the nicotine surf through my veins as my body relaxed. The Texas heat hasn’t been kind this summer and I was about two hours away from ripping my sweat drenched clothes off and pouring myself a tall glass of Stella Rosa. At the same time, being at work made all the madness at home seem to disappear because here I was in charge. Working the night shift at the shipping yard wasn’t something I would have pictured doing long term, but it paid the bills. It paid for the kids I had right out of high school with a man who done everything but killed me. It paid for my addiction and the antidepressants I was now on because I fought so hard to survive. It also got me away from the house that I now had to move in to. My father’s house.

           The night I decided to finally leave the boys dad was the night I caught him sleeping with the woman in the apartment above us. He came stumbling in the back door of the apartment, reeked of cheap whiskey and the cotton candy perfume you get from the dollar store. I told him I was leaving with the kids and before I could say anything else he was on top of me choking me. Thankfully he was too drunk and all it took for me to overcome him was a swift knee to the groin. With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, I called my dad, and he showed up at midnight to come rescue me from yet another beating. If it weren’t for my father who knows how things would have ended up, or if I would be here today. 

           My father lives on an acre and a half in a rural town just outside of Beaumont, Texas. Next to him my grandpa owns eighty-seven acres of nothing but secluded land and a small farmhouse pretty much tore off from the rest of the world. There is no DoorDash, or Instacart. Half of the time you don’t have enough service to make a phone call let alone make a Facebook post. It’s like living in the past. No internet, no traffic sounds, just nothing. After what I had just been through it was just what I needed. I needed the quiet. I wanted to hear the nothingness. The sounds of coyotes howling in the night sky and the bullfrogs singing to each other with their deep bellows. It’s everything that could bring me back to myself and pick me back off of my ass and on my feet again.

           “You need to figure out what your plan is.” My dad threw a book at me to get my attention. “Did you not hear a word I just said? I’m about tired of you just sleeping all the time and moping around like you don’t have anything better to do. It’s time to start putting on your big girl pants and start being a mom. You should have listened to ol dad huh” He pulls the newspaper up to cover his face.

           “Thanks for the advice. I’ll work on being the person you want me to be dad. Good morning to you too.” I reply with a yawn.

           “Jackie made pops some breakfast. I’m going to need you to go over there and take it to him before it gets cold. Don’t worry, I’ll watch the kids until you get back.”

           “When is home health supposed to kick in for him? I thought they had someone coming in that was going to start cooking and cleaning the house.” I mention hoping he hasn’t heard me as I grab the plate of food and head for the door.

           “We got a girl that’s going to be out here starting Monday hopefully, but until then we need you to go over and bring him what he needs.”

           “Yes sir. If the kids wake up tell them, I’ll be right back.” I close the door behind me and head next door to my grandpa’s fortress of solitude.

           Time took a toll on my grandpa all those years I was away. His skin was loose with wrinkles from his face all down to his knees, his hair white as a cow bird. His arms were all different shades of colors from the bruises he’d put upon himself. He’d just so much bump himself and he was turning black and blue and if it was a fresh scrape or bump you could always tell because it would be a bright red shade. I guess that’s what comes with age. Paper thin skin holding all your bones together because there really wasn’t much muscle left. Two years prior he was diagnosed with stage two dementia and since then it has been rapidly eating at his brain. My dad said that every day he forgets a little more and he loses a little more of himself. He didn’t lose his strength, but he lost his mind. When my grandma passed all the years of isolating himself, started to catch up to him and we were stuck with the aftermath.

           “Pops I brought you some breakfast.” I waited impatiently for a reply because I had been called to work earlier than expected.

Silence.

“Pop it’s me Jade. I have your breakfast” Still no reply.

         I walked through the front door into the kitchen, and everything was dark. The house was cold and there was a smell I couldn’t quite recall. It should have come to me right away but I’m guessing that with how much my adrenaline was rushing to find him it slipped right past me. You would have thought someone with two kids could recognize piss.

           “Pop can you hear me” I screamed. I pulled out my phone to be ready in case I needed to call 911. My body was trembling, scared that I might be the one to find him lying on the bed dead. Why me? Haven’t I been through enough trauma. I make my way through the living room and down the hallway, the urine smell getting stronger and stronger. I turn the knob of each room as I go by sighing with each one being empty but at the same time scared for what’s to come.

           “He wouldn’t just wander around, right?” I breath.

           I grip the doorknob to the last bedroom. His bedroom.

           “Pop it’s me Jade. Can you hear me?” I whisper out knowing that this is it. I’ve called out several times and have got no response. The first time in my life witnessing a dead body and it has to be my grandpa. What a great way to start off fresh.

           Then I hear it. The faint sound of someone beating on the floor.

           “Hep.”

He barely had any breath to say the words, but I knew he was crying for help.

           “Pops I’m here. I’m coming” But the doorknob wouldn’t turn. It was locked. I dropped my phone and ran outside to the window. I could see him lying on the floor unable to move helplessly beating on the floor hoping someone would hear him. I pushed on the window and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. That means it must have been locked from the inside. I look around for anything I could use to get into that room, and I see a shovel propped up on a young pecan tree. The next few seconds were a blur, but it was the urine smell that hit me and the glass on the ground that told me I was in.

        “I got you, don’t worry. I’m getting you help.” I unlocked the bedroom door and called 911. After I got off the phone with the sheriff’s department, I called my dad.

           The ambulance lights danced through the trees, racing to get to the county hospital almost like Cinderella trying to race the clock to be home before midnight. Each minute going by was another stolen from him. When the EMT said the words stroke I fell to my knees hoping and praying we caught it in time.

  By the time we got to the hospital everyone was already there. We waited in triage for what seemed like hours upon hours for results or anything that could point us as to what happened. We all knew though. It was our selfishness. Someone should have been there. He needed someone to take care of him, just as I needed someone to rescue me. They had him on IV fluids which seemed like it was working because he started turning color again. While he lay there the nurse came in and told us that they wanted to keep him overnight for observation and that she needed to change him into one of the hospital gowns.

“When is the last time he had a shower?” the words came out of the nurse’s mouth with a slap you in the face kind of tone.

“Well to be completely honest ma’am we had no idea that he wasn’t taking a shower.” Replied Craig. “We just had home health set up and the girl was supposed to start on Monday, but we thought he was able to do all of this on his own. My daughter just moved in with us and it’s taken a lot of our time up, but we do make sure he gets his breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

“So, this man is all alone, and you all have no idea when the last time he took a shower was? Hm, I see.” Her snarky response got my dad all riled up, but he reigned it in because it wasn’t the time or place for a fight.

The overpowering piss smell lingered in the room. As soon as the nurse removed the mud-covered shoes from my grandpa’s feet everyone all but fell over. We had to evacuate the room the stench was so overpowering. Rotten flesh. The smell of a human decomposing but while still alive. The socks and shoes had to be put into the biohazard bag before they could clear the room. It’s atrocious and embarrassing on our part. How could this happen? How did we not know that he was in this bad shape, and we just continue our normal day to day lives. The guilt built up inside of me and I could see from the fists of my father that it was killing him also.

Three weeks he stayed in the hospital and every day I made the effort to drive and visit him. I had already put in my two weeks’ notice because as a family we sat down and decided it was best that me and the kids move in with him. He needed me and I needed him. It would boost his emotions and help build up some of what he had lost plus he would have someone there to be with him at all times whenever he needed. The interaction with someone other than a squirrel or a raccoon would do him good. And just like him I needed the feeling of being important. I needed to build up my confidence and find myself again. I needed purpose. My father agreed to pay me a weekly rate for caring and tending to my grandpa and with that I started moving mine and my kid’s life over into a single bedroom just for us.

The first night back at his house I cooked stuffed bell peppers and macaroni and cheese. I heated the tea pot until it was boiling and added the Lipton bags to simmer. A fresh glass of sweet tea would do him good. I wonder when the last time he had sweet tea was? I had him sit at the table with me and the kids and I made everyone a plate for dinner. Before I could even sit down and enjoy my meal his was already empty and he was tapping on the glass for more. I stood up and made him another round of food and he was on his way to engulfing it.

“Pops slow down you’re going to get sick from eating too fast” I say but he doesn’t hear me. He’s like a ravaged wolf left too long without food and his eye was on the prize.

“That’s a sweet one” he says rubbing his belly.

It doesn’t make sense to me, but I chuckle a little because it makes me happy knowing he’s got me now to take care of him.

“I’m glad you like it” I say with a smile. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

I put up all the food and finish cleaning up the kitchen and decide maybe it’s time to get him in the shower so that way we can get the day’s work off of him. The sun had set, and the kids were in bed, now was the perfect time to get him cleaned up that way I could give him his medicine and get him off to bed. I grab a towel and a washcloth and get it all prepared along with the new soap I went and bought him since the other ones were a bit outdated. Who really knows when the last time he had a shower at home was?

“Hey Pops come with me. We’re going to go get you in the shower so you can get all cleaned up”

I don’t even see the next thing coming but I’m ducking my head. He’s swinging at me. Why is he trying to hit me?

“Pop what’s wrong? What did I do?” I shout.

“I don’t take no orders from you” he yelled back. His eyes were glassed over like he was a different person, a person I didn’t recognize.

I felt the blow of the third swing because I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it. It was like he was on a mission, and I was the target he was trained to kill. I ran out of the room crying and went straight outside so I could catch a breath of fresh air. What just happened? I remembered my dad telling me about him having Dementia, but I didn’t know enough about it to understand what it really was, only that he was slowly losing his mind. Outside on the porch was the only place that I knew that I could get a signal, so I went straight to google looking for answers.

Pages and pages of articles I went through describing what I could only say is a nightmare. He doesn’t know who I am. My own grandfather has forgotten me. One article said that people with dementia get combative and can experience something called sundown syndrome. Is that what I’m experiencing? I keep reading and find that if you alter your looks by putting your hair up or down it can confuse them into thinking you are someone else. I sigh and put my hair into a ponytail.

“This is going to be a lot harder than I thought it would” I say as I walk back into the house.