No regrets: a journey with Alzheimer's

Christian Century, Nov 1, 2003 by Daphne Simpkins

"I'll murder you straightaway," her companion promised politely.

"Even if you have to go to jail?"

"Anything for you, dear."

"How will you do it?"

"Poison. Gun." The friend shrugged nonchalantly. "Do you have a preference?"

"Give me a strong sleeping pill. Then drown me in a bathtub. There's a good chance you could get away with murder that way. It really could look like an accident, don't you think?"

"Brilliant. And of course, you will do the same for me?"

I couldn't see their faces, but I watched Delia, the cashier, who wore a practiced blank expression. Should either of these two women become suddenly dead in the near future and their movements get backtracked by a detective to Kmart, Delia was ready to say, "I didn't hear nothing. I don't even remember those two foreigners in my checkout line. I wait on a million customers a day. How'm I s'posed to remember them?"

"Who are they?" Daddy asked, tension gathering in his face.

"The Kevorkian sisters," I replied. "We don't know them."

"Somebody has died. Do we need to go to the funeral?"

"Not yet," I said, as the two women left, laughing.

WE WERE CHECKED OUT efficiently, and l pushed our loaded buggy to the car. I opened the passenger door for Daddy and said, "Sit." It sounded like I was ordering him around, but long, polite sentences troubled Daddy. I began to amend nay sentence patterns and word choices right after I said to him one time, "Will you please stand up?" and he replied, quite sensibly, "Stand up to what?"

"Sit in the car," I repeated, as he gripped the door handle and pushed on it. I didn't rush hint. He lives in a different time zone. I speedily unloaded the buggy, putting all of the sacks in the trunk except for the party supplies, which I placed within arm's reach on the back seat. But when I was finished, Daddy was still standing. "Get inside the car. Party time."

Knowing he was supposed to do something but unsure what, Daddy simply folded up in front of me, balancing on the running board of the car. People in the store's parking lot stopped in their tracks, sacks ready to be tossed aside if they concluded from the drama unfolding that the old man being bossed around needed rescuing from me. Seeing their concern, I waved cheerily and said, "It's 'all right. He's just crazy."

They didn't believe me. I decided that I had better get Daddy into the car before someone called the cops on me and accused me of elder abuse, so I leaned over and barked in a short command that my Alzheimer's-ridden Daddy might be able to process and that passing strangers concluded was my shrewish need to dominate an old man, "Get in the car."

"I am in the car," he said, looking up at me. He thought I was playing with him, and he began to giggle.

His laughter was contagious, and I might have stopped a moment, as I have many times, to explode in hysterics over the ridiculousness of our situation if I hadn't had so many witnesses who might have construed my laughter as cold-hearted glee gained from torturing a senior citizen who was scared enough of me to cower at my feet.