We Are They

I walked out of the nursing home the other day like I always do — with big strides, reveling a little in how my legs still work, how I can breathe and I can move, and I am free to walk away from that place when I feel I have spent enough time there. I can just make the choice, get up, put on my coat, and head out. I pass all the folks in the hallways… the attendants and caregivers in their coordinated smocks and white shoes; the other visitors sitting with their people making conversation or just sharing the space; and the residents, the patients, the inmates…. some walking along the hallways silently or mumbling, others in wheelchairs sleeping or maneuvering about. In those mobile chairs, inching out a doorway or listing toward the wall, creeping on with no discernible purpose or goal, sometimes the folks make me think of timid, indecisive June bugs.

I go to the nursing home regularly, several times a week, to see my uncle Dan Wagoner. He is 86. A retired modern dancer and New Yorker, he is certainly a fish out of water in his little room now decorated with his own paintings and antique straight-back chairs. Photographs of dancers are pinned to his personal bulletin board, along with miscellaneous “thank-you” items mentioning his military service. It’s odd to think of him being a veteran. To me, he is a dancer. A lithe, whimsical, incredibly talented artist and teacher. We all went to New York to see him dance on stages there, and to Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh. His stage presence was undeniable and wonderful. Now my brothers, mother, and I take turns bringing him medicinal cannabis every day to help ease the effects of Parkinson’s Disease. He had a knee replacement a few years ago that left him nearly immobile for a long time, and the Parkinson’s invaded. My mom, who is now 90, tried so hard to keep him at her house, and she cared for him longer and more strenuously than she should’ve. It was too much. So we moved him to the home, and there he has remained for about two years. I didn’t visit him often in the beginning, I admit. It was easier to not go, especially since I was working so hard. But then I left my job, and there were no excuses. We discovered around that time that medicinal cannabis might help him, so he applied for and got his certification to use it, and I got my caregiver’s card to be able to go to the dispensary in Cumberland to get it for him. The next hurdle was getting it delivered to him every day, as we learned that the nursing home staff was disallowed by its policies to provide the stuff to him. So, with no other real choice, we divvied up the days of the week between my brothers Don and Ben, me, and Mom. He sees one of us every day. We take him an elixir to help with tremors, and we bring him a brownie to help with anxiety. Mom and I make the brownies… No time in my earlier life did I expect that someday I would stand in my mom’s kitchen figuring out a pot brownie recipe with her. “Okay, put the pot in now,” she’ll say. I had no idea that was in the cards, for sure.

The effort is paying off in a few ways. Firstly, the cannabis is obviously helping Dan. The tremor he had developed in his hands is gone. He can get up from a chair with ease now, and he moves fast with a walker. His cognitive processes seem to be clearer, too, and he is cheerier. Don’t get me wrong — he’s pretty depressed most of the time. His life is not his own anymore. His body, his instrument, does not obey him well. He sits in his room watching TV most of the day, and listening to the other residents in the hallway. He feels his life is finished, and that he should be allowed to go on. But the marijuana, as my mom always calls it, does seem to lift him a little bit. And, secondly, I’m pretty sure seeing one of us every day helps, too. It helps him, and it helps my brothers and me. We can talk about his childhood with him, recalling hilarious stories of our other aunts and uncles or our grandparents. We can talk politics or art. We can bust him out once in a while to go to a movie or out to dinner, too, which is always nice. The time we are all spending together is definitely a perk in all this.

Being in the presence of the elderly and infirm is also a surprising perk. I find myself fascinated sometimes by these folks. In their faces, I can see them as children, or young adults. I can see the remnants of a middle-aged, active human who didn’t know he or she would someday be in such a place. Sometimes I wince upon seeing a face that seems anguished. There are a few of those. In a room close to my uncle’s, a woman sits in a wheelchair next to her bed. Every time I pass her, she is holding a blanket against her face, hiding her eyes. Every time I see her, that is her position. What is on her mind? How does it help to shut everything out? She doesn’t seem upset. She just always has her face completely covered. And I should add that this is a good place, as nursing homes go. The staff members are kind. Today I went by a room where an aide was blow-drying a resident’s hair. It seemed a gentle and kind process. Sometimes a staffer will be standing in a room, her hand resting on her hip, chatting with a resident. Often the exchanges seem familiar and friendly. So I think in general this is a good place to be, if one has to be cared for in such a way.

I am bothered when I hear people talk to the residents as if they are children. They really aren’t children. They are the exact opposite. They have walked the Earth for decades. They have experienced work and family strife, love and sex, disappointments, heartache, joys, travel — all of it. When they look in the mirror, they are surely bewildered. We see that aged face today, but they don’t feel it. Age creeps up in a hurry and takes everyone a little by surprise, I think. And the naïveté of the younger set is ever-present. The young refer to the old as a separate use of the word “they.” “They” don’t sleep well at night. “They” can’t taste like they used to. “They” do better with a schedule. Always referring to the elderly as if they are in a category that is removed and not of the rest of us. But indeed, they are us, and we are them.

I saw a man as I was leaving. He was small and thin, and bent over. But he glanced up at me, and we looked at each other for a moment. His eyes were sunken and small, and his head was nearly bald. But I could see in the face what he once was. I could see the youth there. His DNA has failed to repeat itself completely over the years, but the visage of his younger self is visible. And I was struck, as I so often am, with the fact that he was indeed once young; he was a healthy, capable human with all his hair and bright eyes. And it was probably not all that long ago, in the whole scheme of things. Time marches on, with a relentless beat. Our bodies fight to stay alive, but barring an early exit, we all become “they” in the end. We need to remember that, and remember to treat the older crowd with the dignity and understanding that we will crave when we get there.