Love and Memory

He had always hated nursing homes.

They were cold, and sterile, and the static of the TV in the corner ground his nerves. Down the hall, someone was crying. No doubt mourning the loss of a loved one. This was a place of death, and misery, wrapped in sparkly wrapping paper that tried to distract you from what was happening within. From the outside, the tenants here were well-cared for, with nurses that bent head over heels to attend to their every desire. The food was Michelin-star worthy. There was never a cold draft, and the floors were always spotless.

He wished that were the reality.

He sat by her bedside, with one hand gripping hers. He couldn’t help but notice how old, how shriveled, hers looked. Age spots dotted soft skin like freckles, and she had gotten so pale that her skin was practically see through. She was cold.

“Richard?”

Her voice was faint, but angelic. The same music to his ears that it had always been.

“No, Marge. It’s Tim.”

Her brow furrowed, confused. Her eyes – once a beautiful, vivid green – looked so tired. Her hand tightened in his, ever so slightly. She looked around the room as though she was just seeing it for the first time. Then those eyes landed back on him.

“Tim? I don’t know a Tim.”

His heart broke a little more, just as it always did when those words came out of her mouth. The reality of loving her, these last few years, had become painful. He knew she was hurting, and confused, and couldn’t help it. But his love for her was endless, regardless of the pain it caused, regardless of how much harder it was becoming for him to put his clothes on every day to come see her. His old hands struggled to button up his shirts and to tie his ties. His ankles were usually so swollen that he hardly had any shoes left that fit. But he still did it, every day. Because he knew love was stubborn and deserved sacrifice. He could handle the sacrifice of uncomfortable shoes if it meant getting to see her face.

She leaned away from him, ever so slightly, lightly tugging her hand from his grip. He smiled a sad smile, a single tear forming in his eye, and let go. He clasped his own hands together in front of him, rubbing his thumbs together in a self-soothing gesture.

“How was your movie night last night? I heard all you ladies got together to watch Pride and Prejudice.”

She blinked.

“It was rather nice. Though some of these ladies are so rude. And old.”

He chuckled at that. He couldn’t imagine the last time she must have looked in a mirror and realized she was just like them. The nurses always did her hair, and sponge bathed her by the bed. He didn’t even know if the bathroom attached to her room had a mirror in it at all.

“What was your favorite part?”

“When he helped find her sister after she ran away.”

“Yes, that part is lovely.”

“You must be Richard!”

Just like that, a pleasant conversation was converted back into a moment of grief. Hardly twenty seconds passed between those two sentences, and yet she had forgotten. She could hardly keep a straight thought these days. He wondered what it was like being inside of her head.

“No, I’m Tim.”

“Why am I here? I’m about to miss my flight! I need to get to the airport or else the children will be upset that I didn’t make it for Thanksgiving.”

“It’s April, Marge. You don’t need to be at the airport. The children haven’t invited us up for Thanksgiving in a long time.”

“Us?”

“Yes.”

She turned to look out of the window next to her bed. It was a beautiful day outside, without a single cloud to mark the sky. The large oak trees just beyond the glass swayed in the wind, and they could hear birds chirping merrily from within their branches. Wildflowers of many colors sprouted on the lawn outside, soft pinks and shades of white. Someone walked their large brown dog down the sidewalk.

She glanced back toward him.

“I think I would like to go now.”

“We can’t go, dear.”

“Well why not?”

“You live here now.”

“I don’t want to live here. This place is always so cold and it smells damp.”

The tears began to well even more in his eyes. One slipped over and rolled down his right cheek. He couldn’t bring himself to brush it away. She watched it drop from his chin and drip onto the floor and leaned a little further away.

“When is Richard coming to pick me up?”

“He isn’t, Marge.”

“Why not?”

“Richard hasn’t been around for a long time.”

This was what made up most of his trips to see her these days. She asked the same questions every day, and he watched her relive her grief each time. She couldn’t understand what was going on. Her own mind had failed her. He had become the one consistent thing left in her life, and even that wasn’t enough to bring her clarity.

“I don’t feel too well.”

“Did you let the nurses give you your meds this morning? I know you usually fight them about it.”

“Is that what they were giving me?”

When he was a child, he had believed in God. In a higher purpose. She and him had even been married in the chapel he had grown up in, before having their reception in their own backyard. But they had gotten older, and she kept getting sicker, and he couldn’t understand how the entity he had always believed in had let this happen to her. Dementia plaguing her mind was bad enough, and then two years later, the doctors discovered a tumor in her brain. It had only gotten worse since. Eventually, he’d had to find a nursing home to move her to, because everything got to be too much as his arthritis progressed. Admitting her to this place had been the worst day of his life.

He hadn’t been to church in years.

“Tim?”

“Yes, Marge. That’s me.”

“What took you so long to come visit? I’ve been waiting all week!”

He had to chuckle a bit at that.

“I was just here yesterday, Marge. And the day before that.”

“Oh.”

He shook himself a bit from his grief. Once every few weeks or so, she remembered him. He knew she would never remember their many days together, or their long nights, but she remembered his name. She would never remember their wedding, with the peony petals everywhere just like she wanted and the beautiful white gazebo he had built especially for her. She didn’t remember Charlie, their first dog, or Amanda, their first kid.

But she remembered his name.

She would never again know the happiness of baking her favorite turtle cookies or know what it had felt like watching their children sing next to their Christmas tree. She would never know the many stories he had told her on the back porch of the house they had lived in together, with its rickety floorboards and pale blue shutters. She wouldn’t know the many times they had danced in the rain or had kissed under the shade of the big trees in her parents’ backyard. She wouldn’t remember the laugh of their baby granddaughter, even though that had once been her favorite sound in the world.

But occasionally, she remembered his name. And to him, that was enough.

She smiled a bit and reached for his hand. He let her take it, her fingers squeezing his tightly this time. She looked into his eyes, deeply and with a clarity he hadn’t seen in a long time. His stomach clenched.

Yes, loving her was heartache, and sadness, and grief. But it had taught him that love was the most important thing in the universe. It surpassed time and memory, again and again. He woke up in pain and sadness every day, and still he loved her. She woke up tired and confused, and still, whenever she could remember, she loved him.

“Will you come visit me again tomorrow?”

“Of course I will, Marge.”

“I love you, Tim.”

“I love you too.”