An Outing

The caregiver called at 3:30 pm, her usually calm voice betraying a slight note of panic. "They've been gone since 10 this morning and I'm getting worried about your father. He can't stay out this long! Do you have any idea what's happened?"

My father-in-law's brother and sister-in-law arrived yesterday from Florida. Uncle A. is nearly as hard-of-hearing as his older brother, but his wife is younger, resourceful, and capable and usually exhibits a lot of common sense. We were pretty sure they had taken J.'s father somewhere - but where might that be, and why had they been gone so long?

"Call me when they get back," J. said. To me, he said, "They've probably taken him back to their hotel room, and he's lying on the floor and they're feeding him grapes and he's in seventh heaven."

I raised my eyebrows; that sounded doubtful to me, at least for this long a time. "He'll be totally exhausted," I said. "But who knows what they've gotten into."

In another half hour, the phone rang again: it was Uncle's wife. "Well, we had an adventure," she said.

"Is my father still alive?" J. asked, dryly.

"Oh yes!" She is a North Carolinian with a warm voice and a Southern accent. Her husband is a very funny man and a storyteller like his brother; we're fond of both of them. "When we arrived around 10:00 this morning, your father said he wanted to go to his old church."

Oh, really! That in itself was amazing; he's barely been out of the apartment for six weeks, and has barely enough stamina to stay up in a wheelchair for an hour at a time; other than one trip to the doctor, a few lunches in the dining room, and an appearance last week, in our care, at the memorial service for a friend at the retirement home - in the gathering room just a short distance away from his own apartment - he's had no desire to go anywhere. But, OK, that's what he said he wanted, and what did they know, not being privy to recent history? They were there to make him happy, and spend time together: off they optimistically went.

"So we loaded him into his wheelchair and got him into our rental car," she continued. "I wasn't sure which of his old churches he meant, or how to get there, but I was certain once we got going he'd know the way. But when we got onto the highway I realized he had absolutely no idea where he was or where we were going, and of course we didn't know either. So I went in the way I kind of remembered, and we drove around for a while, not finding anything very familiar, and of course neither your father nor his brother were of any help. They were shouting away at each other, though, perfectly happy."

"Eventually we got to Q__, - it was close to noon by then - and I saw a restaurant and said,'Well! Let's have lunch!' so we all went in and ate. Your father had poached eggs and toast and seemed fine; he'd given up, or forgotten about, trying to get to the church. When we were done we got him back in the car and started for home. But in a couple of miles I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw your father pulling at his clothes and realized, 'Ohmigod, he's got to go to the bathroom.' I was measuring the distance to the woods in my mind's eye, but just then we came upon a Baptist church with a few cars still in the driveway, so I pulled in and explained the situation and asked if they could help us, and they said 'of course!' and three men came out and got him in there. Then we started for home again, and have just gotten back." (It may not have been North Carolina, but it was Baptist, and -- she must have felt -- close to salvation.)

Unbelievable.

In another half hour, our phone rang again. It was my father-in-law. "They've just left and I'm totally exhausted!" he told J. "I don't know where we were, but it took three Episcopal priests to carry me into the bathroom!"

Comments

[dale]

Laughing uncontrollably here. Sorry. I'll gain self-possession in a moment. Oh my God.

[marja-leena]

Laughing here too.. and kind of shocked, amazed.

[Theriomorph]

ha ha ha ha

[leslee]

Ha! That's hilarious.

[connie]

May God bless those Episcopalian Baptists, or Baptipalians, just God Bless Them all!

[Dave]

Hee! Well, at least he didn't take them for Unitarians.

So he has a brother, eh? Good god.

[beth]

Glad you all think it's so funny. (Just kidding - it IS funny. We're just kinda shell-shocked by now.)

Yes, Dave, he still has two younger brothers who are living, both in the U.S. It was a family of seven originally, 5 boys and 2 girls. One of the older brothers died young, and the eldest one was the first to move to North America. I never met him, but met his sisters before they died; of course we have known these younger brothers the best.

[Vivian Lewin]

by now i know it's unoriginal but I think the neighbours heard me laughing from their side of the wall. I needed that laugh.

[kaycie]

Oh, Beth, that's so funny. What a lovely woman his sister-in-law must be. And of course, you know we Southerners are always at home in a Baptist church!

[Nancy]

Gave me a chuckle, too. Thanks for it.

[Bill]

One of the best visits I've ever had with an out of town brother was conducted between stops at a Wal-mart (the optician), Burlington Coat Factory (a much need belt) and a Walgreens (glasses, once again). With another brother it was a great visit to a museum and a drive through the racial ghetto of St. Louis' North Side. With a sister, a trip to find some glue. Visiting over food, or on the sofa is O.K., but it's just not where it's at!

My father-in-law with Alzheimer's perks up like a watered houseplant when taken away from his care facility. On our last visit, he flinched at my approach and was visibly threatened at the unseemliness of my proposal that we go to a bar and grill. I withdrew, but returned with more momentum and we both had a fine time.

Rhondo, a wolfhound we once had, got down and would not get up. But several days before he passed away, he did get up, and wandered for a spell in the high grass and sunshine.

[language hat]

We had a complex laugh here too (recovering from a multiday visit by my nonagenarian mother-in-law).

[Loretta]

I laughed at loud at your last line. Thank goodness for a sense of humor, whatever our age!