Cindy's writing class prompt was about making a decision.
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| by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash |
WHAT IS A DECISION?
Scene 1: A Therapist’s Office.
Camera begins in closeup on a computer screen with the image of an online headline, “Giants Win World Series Again.” Camera slowly pulls out to reveal the therapist, a handsome Italian-Native American man of late middle age sitting on an expensive office chair. He wears a Pendleton wool sweater with Pacific-Northwest tribal markings. His hair is poofed into an elaborate comb-over. He is facing the camera.
Therapist 1: What you don’t realize, Kake, is that staying with him is a decision.
EDIT: Wipe screen to
Scene 2: A Therapist’s Office
Camera opens on wide shot of colorful office. A tall, long-haired GenX woman stands at the door. She is dressed in a long flowing shirt, leggings, and a facemask. She welcomes a short, similarly face-masked woman into her room. As I enter, we both take off our masks. Through the scene, the camera remains in long shot, behind my head, looking at my therapist as we both sit down.
Me (sniffling): So we finally got Hospice going.
Therapist 2: I hope you know how brave you are.
Me: Huh?
Therapist 2: Every day the past five years you could have made a different decision.
Me: You mean I could have institutionalized him?
The therapist nods her head.
Me: I didn’t know that was a decision.
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I have never made an important decision using logic. I have always followed my heart. And when it came time to care for my spouse, my heart led so strongly that it took being told a few times that I was actually making a decision. A decision which never felt like a decision.
It’s not that I never thought I wouldn't choose to “place” him. I actually called a few memory care establishments early on. We had the money. I started this research after Therapist 1 first saw the “thousand yard stare” in a photograph and asked if Will had dementia. I said, “I don’t know.” I had thought what I was seeing was just normal aging forgetfulness. We already had most of our household bills, at one time his task, on automatic withdrawal. And he sometimes repeated stories. But at that time he could still find his way downtown and back on foot without getting lost.
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| Will before his final (26th) 65 birthday |
Nevertheless, once warned, I did everything a spouse becoming a carer is supposed to do. I retired early at 60. I tried to get him to a neurologist. (That never, ever happened.) I learned as much as I could about dementia and spent time at Alz.org. Fortunately, the State of Oregon offers free family training through OregonCare Partners and I was able to attend two workshops by Teepa Snow, a nationally known expert. I also hired a local company called Bend Senior CareManagement to make sure Will could age in place in our home should I die while he was still alive. And when I logged into Facebook dementia carer group sites, and read about my future, I actually thought that at some time, if I had to start scraping human shit off the carpet, I would have him placed.
And that placement never happened, even though the shit did. And I still didn't feel like I made a decision.
Picking a tax accountant was a decision. Making sure my spouse wasn’t bothered by taxes anymore wasn’t. Hiring a concierge doctor to get a diagnosis was a decision. Not telling him he had dementia wasn’t. Putting the hospice hospital bed in the front room was a decision. Sleeping on the floor beside it wasn’t.
Making a decision requires seeing a choice and when I looked into his old familiar eyes my only choice was love our way.
He slipped into his death coma on Christmas Day, 2021. Just
before, he was cursing me for trying to clean the shit off him. But he had told
me he loved me the day before so I carry both memories, as well as that of placing
my hand on his cold, un-made-up face in his reed coffin just before it was
lowered into earth.To be sure he was dead. To tell him good-bye.
And that wasn’t a decision either.
