On June 2, 2012, I thought I knew what to expect with my mother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis. I was a single mother of two young boys ages six and eight. An ambitious lawyer with goals and passion. A primary breadwinner. An optimist. A blonde-haired size four comfortable in a bathing suit. I could handle anything thrown my way. Just watch me.

June 2, 2012: the day my father passed away unexpectedly. In some ways it was so long ago. I feel like a different person. I am more established and a bit wrinkly. I am now a mother of teenage sons, not young children. I am more private with fewer friends. Heavier with a menopausal belly. Fortunately, 2020 is a perfect cover–the COVID pandemic prevents one from being social (at least in person), and a zoom top with yoga pants and sports shoes (or no shoes) meets all dress requirements.

In other ways, it could have happened only a minute ago. I can tap into those feelings and return to the scene. My mother’s confused face after I asked her to call 911. The kind 911 operator who walked me through CPR while I yelled expletives into the phone and cried uncontrollably. I broke his rib. I know I did. I heard the crack and felt my hands push just a bit deeper into a new hollow in his chest. I can see the firemen storming into the bedroom with the energy of superheroes, only to quickly tell me it was too late. Of course, it was too late. He was dead before I arrived. I realize that now. Sometimes we see what we wish were true as if our will could create a parallel universe.

The day my father passed, my mother and I were going to the store to buy her a new cell phone. I called her before I left to pick her up. My parents referred to me as “Mare.” “Oh, Mare, just pick something out. You know what I like.” Completely understandable. I did know exactly what she liked. Personally, I dread buying a cell phone. So many choices. So many plans. I have no idea how much data I use. Just walking into the store raises my blood pressure and decreases my IQ score. “Besides, your father looks a bit ill. I think I should stay here in case he needs something.” “Ok, I will pick out a phone and be right over.” Was he already dead?

When I arrived, my mother said that Dad was taking a nap. We sat at the breakfast room table setting up her new phone. After I completed adding family members to her contacts, she asked if I would check on my father. “He didn’t look well,” she stated with a concerned tone. “I think there is something wrong with his cheek,” she said while holding her hand next to her cheek.

I knew things were not right when I walked into the bedroom. I had never seen a dead body outside of a funeral home. My mind told me something was wrong, but I thought he was perhaps just very ill. After all, Dad had survived so many things. A quadruple bypass, back surgeries, high blood pressure, knee replacement, skin cancer, high cholesterol, and sleep apnea to name a few. A miracle of modern medicine. My mother asked me what I thought. “What should we do?” I remember asking her slowly and in a calm voice to pick up the phone and call 911. When the operator joined, I heard her panicked voice tell the operator that we thought something was wrong with her husband, but she could not put the words together to explain or answer the questions. Trying not to sound upset, I asked her for the phone. She looked so confused and anguished. She looked helpless and sad. She looked scared and vulnerable. My heart broke, but I needed to attend to more immediate matters. I had to block her out of my mind and talk to the operator.

As I described the scene, my brain realized the full effect of the moment. The operator asked me if I knew CPR. I said no. She asked me if I had taken a CPR class. I told her that I had taken a CPR class at work, but that I had never used it. I recall that she told me not to worry and just to listen and do as she said. This is when the tears started streaming through the wrinkles around my eyes like creeks from melting snow down my cheeks. “Dad, no, shit fuck, no, no, no, come on Dad!” She calmly walked me through CPR, although it sounded like she also was crying. Like muscle memory it came back. I was surprised that the feeling of pressing down on the chest of the mannequin during my CPR class at work and the feeling of pressing down on the chest of my father were in my mind the same. I recall feeling a sense of calm and accomplishment when I felt the chest reduce when I applied my weight and return once I reduced my pressure. I put my full weight into it—if we are going to perform CPR, let’s put everything into it.

The doctor was called. The police arrived. The police attempted to interview my mother until I realized what was happening and intervened.

Yes, she used to put his daily heart medication in his pill container. No, they had a happy marriage. More than fifty years. No, she would not have intentionally made a mistake. She seems a bit confused. Please, talk to me. Please do not ask her any more questions. She is upset, confused, vulnerable. Let me tell you about her Alzheimer’s. She was diagnosed several months ago. Please just let her be. She is very confused, I agree. You are right. 

Close relatives I had called to inform them about my father’s passing ate sandwiches in the breakfast room from groceries my mother had purchased. Horrible phone calls etched in my brain of sons learning of their father’s passing. I did not know that almost a decade later I would make the same phone calls about my mother.

My father lay dead in his bed waiting for the hearse to take him away. The police stayed until the hearse arrived. Although they were not supposed to allow me to sit with him, I felt an overwhelming need to be next to him. They kindly obliged. I sat next to his body and wondered if it were just a shell. I prayed. I wished for a sign. Where was his soul, his essence? Is it just over? Is this how it ends? Does something happen afterwards? I thought perhaps I would receive a sign, something showing me what happens after our bodies wear out. I finally summoned the fortitude to touch his shoulder. It was cold and stiff. No one was home.

A representative of the funeral home eventually arrived that evening in a dark suit and entered the house carrying a single long-stemmed red rose that he presented to my mother with his condolences who broke out in fits of giggles and laughter. He shot a confused look at my teary face.

If only I had realized…these were the good times.

I have since learned more about death, and I know that my father had what people call a good death. He enjoyed a lunch with his friends at a favorite restaurant. He came home and talked to his wife of fifty years. Later I learned from my mother that he had kissed her on the cheek and told her to place his wallet and watch in her purse. He went upstairs to take an afternoon nap and changed into the navy blue silky pajamas that he loved. He died in his sleep.