Reunited with dad after five months in lockdown
Fearing how isolation affected 89-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, his good humour was a relief
The nurse knocks on the door. “Your 30 minutes are up. Time to say goodbye.” “What? Already? I just got here!” I’m in my dad’s bedroom at a Toronto long-term-care facility.
And after five months of COVID banishment, I feel like I’ve finally penetrated Fort Knox.
The lockdown, as we know, was severe: Once coronavirus swept through seniors’ homes in March, the only people allowed in were front-line workers and delivery drivers dropping off personal protective equipment.
Sure, there were window visits, where we stood on the sidewalk waving at a pair of wildly gesticulating hands four floors above.
“Hey, I see a bald head. Is that him? The sun is in my eyes!”
But from late winter until midsummer, most interactions with my outgoing 89year-old dad — four years into a debilitating Alzheimer’s diagnosis — have been restricted to patchy Zoom calls and awkward phone conversations where his hearing aids would malfunction and I would have to repeatedly shout into the phone: “HIT THE BOOST BUTTON!”
“What was that, son? Speak up, I can’t hear you!” “I said: ‘HIT THE BOOST BUTTON!’ ” “What?” I knew the writing was on the wall when he started yanking out phone wires and the overworked nursing staff had to add “Find neatly wrapped Rogers cable in Alfred’s closet and reconnect to modem” to their list of caretaking duties.
“I’ve gotta get in there!” I told my wife when the province announced that inroom visits, with strict safety measures, would finally be allowed. “Who knows what he’s been up to?”
And so it was with great anticipation that I rapped on his door this week, in a face mask, socially distanced, clutching the negative results of my surprisingly unpleasant COVID test, which felt like an alien probe inside my nasal cavity.
What would I find when he opened the door? How had being locked up for half a year affected his mental and physical health? Would he even know who I am?
“Hey, it’s me!” I announce as I walk in to find him sitting in an armchair, reading a newspaper as if nothing has happened.
“I’m here to collect that 10 bucks you owe me.”
He stares at the masked intruder with the belligerent attitude, puts two and two together and, without missing a beat, breaks into song.
“Hit the road, Jack,” he croons with satiric flair. “Don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.”
Surprised by his good humour, I heave a sigh of relief, skip the formalities — we
can’t hug anyway — and launch into my usual interrogation as he squirms uncomfortably.
You look good. How do you feel after being locked in your room for almost five months?
“Sometimes I feeeeel …” he croons, launching into an AfricanAmerican spiritual, “like a motherless child.” What do you do all day? “Well, I got up, had breakfast …” Let me guess: you think you’ve been out every day for a walk, am I right?
“Yeah. It wasn’t significant that I was locked in my room.” I notice we have the same haircut — the apple doesn’t fall far from tree. “It’s called a brush cut.” It’s called being bald. It goes on like this as our familiar (and treasured) father/son dynamic — missing in action since March — reasserts itself with vaudevillian flair.
But what he really wants to talk about — and I’m thrilled to hear excitement in his voice — is his favourite topic: colonizing Mars.
“I’m very serious about this,” he tells me with the gravity of a Perimeter astrophysicist. “The world is gonna be too crowded one day and we have to colonize Mars, because when too many people are around — they’ve done research on this — they get bored and start shooting each other.”
I can’t tell if you’re joking or if this is a serious plan. “That’s all I have to say.” It’s classic Alfred: half tongue-incheek, half wide-eyed disbelief, half made-up nonsense that doesn’t sound remotely plausible but — if I tape it — will amuse the grandkids.
It’s also the most reassuring sign that, despite months of isolation, he’s still himself: charming, good-natured, even as Alzheimer’s continues its relentless trajectory and a possible COVID second wave threatens to cut off communication a second time.
Then again, he’s never been conventional.
Looking back, my fondest memories of my dad are less classic Hallmark moments — being congratulated on a winning touchdown or coached for a big date — than unintentionally absurdist comedy:
> trying to strangle his bratty offspring with one hand on the steering wheel during family car trips to Florida.
> huddling in a tent on a father-son camping trip, too terrified to fall asleep after watching “The Blair Witch Project” at a nearby cinema (note: this is when he was 68 and I was 39).
Still, as I glance at his walls, I can see that despite his relentless good cheer, isolation has taken a toll.
The family photo collages we painstakingly mounted on his walls — tangible evidence of a life well lived — have been meticulously removed and stacked neatly by the door, more trash to be disposed of.
And instead of sticky notes reminding him which family members have called and what time dinner is served, he’s taken to writing directly on the wall in impeccably rendered block capitals, scrupulously neat — as befits a former architect — but with noticeable, uncharacteristic misspellings. “NO BODY ALLOWD OUTSIDE.” It’s not a complete shock. Alzheimer’s isn’t an either/or proposition.
The person you care about still exists, but over time, inconsistencies creep in, muddy the waters, make it harder to connect.
Two hours from now, back at home, I may get an anxious call from the floor nurse telling me he’s upset, has no memory of our visit and desperately wants to see his kids. That’s the downside. But for now, in this moment, he’s the same dad I recognize from my childhood: happy, resilient, silly as ever.
“Time to go,” says the nurse, a note of
As I glance at his walls, I can see that despite his relentless good cheer, isolation has taken a toll
impatience creeping in.
I give him an imaginary high five and reluctantly, with a pang of bittersweet regret, step out the door.