The Days that Matter the Most

Teddy

At first, when it happened it came in short bursts. I would close my eyes, and there it was. It was one of the best days of my life. It may have been the best day of my life. Again, it was only a glimpse. Momentary. A flash. My eyes invariably opened, and I was back in my day-to-day. The people came and went. They seemed disingenuous when they asked how I was doing. Obsequious. They didn't really want an answer. I'd learned this from a personal experiment I conducted.

The nurse entered my room. It wasn't a bad room. The furniture the facility provided was the heavy oak furniture, popular in the 1980's. Broad, tall, solid, immovable. My wife had a large television mounted to the wall. The bed was a twin hospital bed, low to the ground. I figured it was positioned as low as possible to minimize any injuries that might be sustained if I rolled out of bed. I wondered if it would be so bad to roll out of bed. Maybe get a little pneumonia and move on to the next location on my list of places I haven't visited yet.

The nurse's name was Brandy. "Mr. Johnson, good morning! How are you?" She didn't wait for an answer and began helping me sit up and transfer to a wheelchair. She would then wheel me approximately five feet then to transfer me to a nice wing chair positioned perfectly for optimal television viewing.

"Brandy, that's your name, right?"

She nodded.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Do I really want to know what, Mr. Johnson?" She donned latex-free gloves before pulling the sheets off my bed and replacing the absorbent pad. The old pad went into the hazardous waste bin in the corner of the room. I had quit feeling self-conscious about incontinence, urinary or otherwise. What I had learned after turning 85 a few years ago is this: Old age is not for the faint of heart. Humility is a way of life, and the faster you assimilate, the better.

"Do you really want to know how I'm doing?"

She stopped making the bed and looked at me. She put her hands on her hips, tilted her head to the side a bit. "To be honest, I don't want to know. It's just something you say, I guess."

"What would you do if I said I was miserable? What if I said I just wanted to go home or wanted some eggs and crispy bacon? What if I said I just wanted my kids and grandkids to visit me today? What if I just wanted to leave?"

She smiled, and I realized at that moment that Brandy was here to do a job, nothing more, nothing less. "I can help you out with the eggs and bacon but can't promise how crispy it'll be."

"That would be just fine, Brandy. Can you do me a favor, though?"

"What's that, Mr. Johnson?"

"Could you please hand me my cell phone?" She retrieved the phone from the nightstand, also heavy oak, placed the device in my hand, then removed her gloves before depositing them in the hazardous waste and exiting my room.

My wife would be coming to see me in about an hour. She put my clothes together every day. I could probably do it myself, but I liked how she combined things. She chose colors that were bright and cheery, and I liked how she seemed to make magic of my clothing. I liked how she cared. I liked her as a human, and I loved her like I'd never loved another thing in my life. When each of our children wase born, of course I instantly loved them, but what I felt for my wife was a universe, and each of my girls was a solar system. Everything big and grand, but there was always bigger, grander, and then there was infinity…and my wife will always be my infinity.

I decided to call her. It was five in the morning. She wouldn't be awake yet, but I needed to hear her voice. I closed my eyes while the phone rang, and I was taken to that perfect day for just a second. It was 1965. I was out of college, out of the army, teaching and going to grad school. It was summer. Frank and Bill had rented a house on the lake in Beverly Shores. They were having a party. My mother did all my shopping back then. She bought a nice sports coat from Brooks Brothers. It was navy blue with a window-pane plaid.

"Teddy? Teddy? Are you there?" I opened my eyes, recognized my wife's voice coming from the cell phone. I heard the sleep in her voice. "Is everything all right?" I heard the click through the phone line. She was turning on the bedside lamp. I could picture her plumping the pillows to support back and neck while she talked to me on the phone.

I started crying. At first it was just hot, salty tears leaking out of my eyes, making trails down my face. The saliva grew thick in my mouth, and then I began sniffling, and then hitching.

"Oh, honey. Are you hurt? What can I do?" Her voice held years of love, concern, caring, a cosmos of emotion and endearment.

"I'm awake," I croaked. "When will you be here to dress me?"

She sighed. "Give me an hour to shower, dress, make some coffee, and then I'll be there. Is that okay?"

"Fine. As fast as you can."

She sighed again. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Something weird has been happening to me. I'll tell you about it when you get here."

She didn't sigh this time. "You're scaring me. Do I need to call someone?"

"I don't think so, but it's weird. Maybe it's because I'm old. Maybe it's dementia. I don't know."

"What are you doing right now?" The concern was back in her voice.

"Sitting in my pajamas, parked in front of the TV, waiting for someone who may or may not bring me some eggs and crispy bacon."

"I made muffins when I got home last night. Orange cranberry. They're good. I'll bring you some." I pictured her arriving in our home after dark last night, exhausted from sitting in a chair watching me watch her for hours on end in this nursing facility. It was miserable for everyone. But she still mustered up enough energy to grease the muffin pan, mix the batter, and bake something she could bring to me to make this sentence better, to remind me of home, maybe the promise of home. I kept forgetting why exactly I was here.

I knew one thing, one truth: I didn't want to be here.

Also, I had lost track of how long I'd been here. I think someone had told me I could go home if I met goals. I didn't know the goals. There was no scoreboard, and from one day to the next, I didn't know what kind of progress I had made. I didn't want to leave my room, though, and I think it may have had a negative impact on my goals.

I decided to give my eyes a rest until my Judy arrived.

I went back to the day of the party. The mirror in the front hall reflected a well-dressed twenty-six year old, slicked back hair, sports coat, black slacks, white dress shirt (ironed and starched by my mother), and a long, skinny, black tie knotted at the collar. This was a good outfit. My mother was a good shopper.

My mother stood next to me, and turned me to look at her. She rubbed her thumb under my chin. "You have just a tiny bit of shaving cream right there." She rubbed her fingers together, and wiped her hand on the side of her dress. "You have fun tonight. Give Frank and Bill my best. Don't get into trouble."

"Yes, Ma, I got it." I kissed her on the forehead and gave her a little squeeze. "See you later tonight."

She arched an eyebrow. "You stay with Frank and Bill if you tie one on. You hear?"

"Yes, Ma. I'll be fine. I promise."

As I mused over my mother's fussing, I caught the aroma of something sweet. When I opened my eyes, my Judy was there, smiling down at me. She held a Tupperware container full of muffins.

"They smell good, don't they?" She looked around the room, arching a greying brow. "Hmm. No eggs and crispy bacon yet." She set the Tupperware on one of the nightstands. "Let's get you dressed, shall we? Then we'll figure out the eggs and bacon situation."

"I love you, Judy. Thank you for coming back here to see me today. I'm so lonely." Then those damned tears started doing their thing again. She was bent over the drawers in the armoire, and I don't think she caught me crying. She set an aqua V-neck cotton sweater vest on the bed then paired it with a white shirt shot through with pink, blue, and aqua in very bright and geometric sort of plaid. She set out some khaki shorts.

"I think this looks nice, don't you?" She looked at me. She wanted my opinion. She really wanted to know.

"It's very nice. Thank you." And then we began the exercise of getting me out of my pajamas and into my clothes for the day.

Judy went to the nurse's station to get someone to come back to the room to transfer me to the wheelchair. Brandy again.

"Did you say you were going to get Teddy some scrambled eggs and crispy bacon?"

"Oh, my gosh. I completely forgot. I am so sorry."

"Not to be a complainer, but I just want you to know something. If I hadn't been coming here to dress him, he'd still be in his room waiting for his food. When would you have remembered? Imagine if you were in his or any other resident's shoes. It doesn't seem right, does it? I know you didn't do anything out of malice. I admire what every one of you do here for our loved ones, but it would be good if you could come up with some kind of method to remember what you're promising people."

Brandy looked at Judy, and we both saw the horror of error she'd made enter her eyes. "I am so, so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. I'll figure something out. I have grandparents, and I wouldn't want that to be their experience. I would hate that for them."

She and Judy transferred me to the wheelchair, and Judy wheeled me to the dining room for breakfast where we had scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and Judy's orange cranberry muffins. I broke up the bacon like confetti and sprinkled it over my eggs. Every bite of egg had a bit of bacon. I'd been eating my eggs like this since I was a kid.

Judy took my hand while she ate her eggs. "What's going on, Teddy? You said something weird was happening to you."

"I want to preface this by saying it's probably me losing my mind. For the past few weeks, when I close my eyes, I go back to 1965. June, specifically. The day of Frank and Bill's party, specifically. The night we met, specifically. I keep going back to getting ready to going out, driving to the beach house, popping the top off a bottle of beer, talking to some of the guys, and then seeing you arrive."

"You do?" Judy beamed. Her whole countenance lit up while she relived the evening. "I remember it like it was yesterday. I think of the best days of my life, you know?"

I nodded. She let go of my hand, placed her fork on her plate, then held up both hands, one index finger pressing each finger on the opposite down while she counted. "My best were the night we met, when you proposed, our wedding day, and then the days each of our girls were born. Oh, goodness. I've run out of fingers on one hand! I have had the best life, haven't I? More than a handful of bests!"

"Judy, what I'm saying is that it's not a memory. When I close my eyes, I'm right back in it. I'm right back in the moment. I'm there. I hear the waves against the rocks, lapping up the shore. I feel the lake breeze on my face after I get out of my car and make my way up the steps to Frank and Bill's front door. I feel my heart skip a beat when I see you in the sweater set and pencil skirt from across the room. I get short of breath when our eyes lock that very first time. I feel everything physiologically. I don't think it's a dream or a reverie."

"Does this happen when you go to sleep?"

"I don't think so. If it does, I'm not recalling anything from dreaming sleep. I notice it when I'm awake and I close my eyes. When it started, it was brief, flashes, tiny bursts. Now, I'm getting longer interludes and seeing, experiencing more. I'm embodying my old self, and it all takes me right back to you…on that night in June 1965."

Judy

Teddy's heart and kidneys had been failing for years. He had senile dementia. He wasn't meeting any of his physical therapy goals, and he was so sad and depressed in the nursing facility. It wasn't what I wanted for him. I wanted him to get strong enough and heal from his pressure ulcers enough that he could come home. We had home health lined up, but the nursing facility had the physical therapy that would enable me to take care of him in our home. I didn't want to take him home before he was ready, but we all saw he was languishing, wasting away before our eyes. He really hated being in the facility, and he dug in his heels at every turn by not working to get better.

Our girls and I explained the situation to Teddy numerous times. Sometimes he understood and gave 110% in physical therapy, but on the days we didn't give him the reminders and the very long explanation, Teddy refused to leave his room. We were in a cycle of education, re-education, and ongoing frustration. Every single one of us, including Teddy, was frustrated.

After Teddy's description of his experiences in June 1965, I spoke to the nursing facility's visiting psychiatrist. She didn't have a lot to say.

"The mind does what it does to protect us. He may be going back to that time because it's one of the happiest of his life. It may be a coping mechanism for his being here, where he clearly doesn't want to be. I don't know. It may stop once you take him back home, if that's what you want to do."

I called our girls. "I'm bringing your father home. It's a long story, and I don't expect you to get it, and I'm not going to argue about this. It's the right thing to do right now."

I brought Teddy home. Three of our male neighbors had to transfer him from the car to the wheelchair so that I could get him into the house. Our kids and grandkids came over to see Teddy that weekend. Teddy was in his wheelchair, sitting on the deck. He had been a birdwatcher for years. He had a running list of all the birds he had seen since we moved into the house in 1978.

One of our sons-in-law had fired up the grill and was on the deck with Teddy. "Ted, how do you want your burger cooked?" There was a pause, and then again, "Ted, how do you want your burger cooked?" Another pause. "Um, Judy? I think you should probably get out here."

I raced to Teddy's side. He was breathing, a smile across his face, and his eyes were closed. I bent over the wheelchair, placing my mouth near his ear, and I hummed the song playing on Frank and Bill's record player during our first dance on that night in June 1965. I kissed my love's cheek, my lips coming away slightly salty and damp.