There's something to be said about all of the visiting I do at the nursing home; I've always had an affinity for listening to the elderly, and I certainly always love a good story. On Dad's birthday last week, I found a florist nearby and bought him a few balloons to tie onto his wheelchair. I don't know who's having it the worst of late ...Zeke with his doggy-cold, or the residents of the Alzheimer's ward; the more lucid of the residents have been asking about him frequently and I hope I can take him back soon. When I got there with the balloons, the staff informed me that Dad was in the lunchroom. When I walked into the room, he and another gentleman were sitting and listening to one of the other residents play the piano. The gentleman playing was confined to a wheelchair and rather gnarled; he could still play, and from his talent even now, it was a bit obvious that it was likely just a shadow of what once had been. He was playing Christmas carols with a twinge of a ragtime flavor. Dad was in a pretty good mood, and even a little talkative; I found out a few days later that I had just missed his sister by a matter of minutes.
He didn't even remember that she had been there; a shame, because it was the first time either of his sisters have been to see him since he's been in the home. It may be the last time; I've only seen one of his sisters once in the last 10 years. He was quite happy with the balloon's and was ready to go home (or, "get on the road" was the exact remark as I recall) ...I made some of the usual gratuitous remarks I would have found utterly offensive even a year ago, but that we all use so freely now. He wanted me to be sure to "find Dad" so he wouldn't "miss any of it." Sometimes the most you can do is play along with him and try to pretend to be wherever his mind is at the moment. His attention span rarely goes beyond seconds, so I no longer really have any guilt feelings about playing along, or telling him I'll be right back when I leave.
I remarked to Dad that the guy playing the piano was pretty talented, and Dad responded with a somewhat derogatory remark about him not being all there, or something to that effect. As of the visit today, I was certainly able to deduce that the gentleman is indeed as mad as a hatter; whether it is Alzheimer's or just your garden variety dementia is anybody's guess. As Mom and I were talking to Dad, he was jabbering away about wanting more coffee ...quite fixated on it in fact. As I listened more, I realized that the larger percentage of his sentences were a form of absurd prose, and he was actually trying to rhyme his sentences (with no small amount of success; I doubt many really listen though). There was a comedic sort of "performance" quality that seemed to be hidden behind it. The mind certainly wasn't all there, but there was a vestige of method somewhere within the madness. I don't think there was a conscious knowledge of his ramblings; there was certainly an obsessiveness about it that precluded the notion that he consciously knew what he was doing. I could still see hints of the former man sneaking past the madness though.
He'd rap his cup on the table, and babble about greeting her in the morning through the end of a spout, and if there was none to be found, he'd certainly shout. The rapping of the cup on the table was really getting to some of the other residents ...I mentioned to one of the aides that more coffee for him might be in order (but they might want to go for decaf), lest some of the other residents go postal or something. He mind appeared to be stuck with wanting coffee ...he rattled and rambled over and over in a lyrical fashion, often to be punctuated with a melodramatic sounding laugh. Given his talent on the piano, it made me wonder if the gentleman may have been a performer at one time. There was a moment I found a bit amusing in which after one of the residents becoming extremely agitated over his rapping the cup, an aide decided to take his coffee cup away from him. She asked him for the cup, and he said no ...he stated flatly that he knew she wouldn't bring it back if he let her have it. She then told him that she would simply refill it for him and bring it back. She was firm, but still somehow gentle as she took it from his hand; as she walked off, he looked me in the eye and said with near perfect lucidity that she thought she was tricking him, but he'd let her think she was getting away with it because he liked how she smiled while she did it.
...and then he went back to the rambling. I laughed as he smiled and then carried on with his monologue.
I asked the head of the unit about the gentleman a few minutes later, and she was quite surprised either that I picked up on the fact that there was some method behind the madness, or that I noticed that he was trying to rhyme whilst she never had. She said she was unaware if there had been any past performance history with him ...but that he had told her before that he had been the mayor of a small town in another state. I'm not sure if that qualifies or not.
I wrote his name down, determined to look him up on the internet and see if I could find any information about him. His name was unusual enough that quoting it in the google field immediately pulled his late-wife's obituary from 2004 ...from the small town in the other state that the director had mentioned no less. Small world indeed; ...it was the first hit. As of 2004, he had outlived two sons out of six, and still had two daughters ...one son and one daughter live locally. Only one of his boys lived in the town where they had lived when his wife passed. I can only make speculations of course, but one thing from the obituary struck me.
He and his late wife took a great deal of pleasure from taking the children, and then later the grandchildren, on yearly vacations that almost always included a trip to Disneyland. I'd like to think that his mad ramblings in near poetic prose replete with the melodramatic effects are probably the remnants of the pleasure he took from playing with his grandchildren. I doubt he knows why he does it, but I suspect it made him happy to see them laugh, so he acts out now ...perhaps he knows why, perhaps not.
Perhaps he simply enjoys our smiles.
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