When Your Parent Becomes Your Child: A Personal Love Story (Part 1)

By: Bruce Schwartz
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:20:55
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My father was sitting on the sofa in his condo when I suddenly saw a look of fright fill his face. His eyes opened wide, and his face contorted. He started screaming, raising his arms to cover his face, and kicking his legs out in front of him. “HELP! HELP! GET AWAY!”

I sat there in shock, not knowing what was happening or what to do. Prior to this, we were having a conversation and all was okay, except he thought I was his mother, as if it were a day in his childhood.

I yelled back, “What’s happening?” He said monsters were coming through the walls. I never saw someone so frightened. His body was in a fetal position, and he was crying as if he were a child living out his worst nightmare. I jumped up without thinking and grabbed the chair I was sitting on and began swinging it around. I tried to force these invisible monsters out of his home, but to no avail.

I ran over to my father, grabbed his shaking body, and held him tightly in my arms. I began talking to him as if I were his mother; mixing the words I somehow remembered hearing in Yiddish and Hebrew when I was a boy. “Sha (Be quiet), Izzy. Hineini (I’m here).”

“Make them go away, Mama,” my father pleaded like a child.

And that was what my father had become.

I was now the parent.

My father grew up in Brooklyn, New York, a Depression-era child, scared of the world. My grandparents, immigrants from Rumania, spoke Yiddish, a combination of German and English, and other Eastern European languages. My grandmother passed away when I was a teenager, and I was now in my forties, but to my father I was his mother at that moment. Where the words came from I don’t now, but after a lifetime of listening to my parents speak Yiddish at the dinner table so my brothers and I wouldn’t know what they were saying, and taking German for a few years in high school to find out what they were saying, I had picked up a few words and phrases.

I rocked my father in my arms and screamed at these intruders, “GENUG! (ENOUGH!) GAI KOCKEN AHFEN YAM!” (GET OUT OF HERE!) until his crying subsided, which told me the monsters were retreating. “Izzy,” I said. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Gornisht! (Nothing!) Farshtaist? (You understand?)” My father stopped shaking, stopped crying, only now I was shaking and crying. No one wants anyone to suffer such horrific fear.

But, my father had Alzheimer’s disease.

Suffering and torment was only the beginning of the nightmare.

While my father was still living, the stress it put on my mother was debilitating. She did her best with him until her nerves got the best of her. I sent her to Houston for two weeks to stay with my brother. I moved out of my own house, with the blessing of my wife and children, and into my parents’ condo. As a writer, I was fortunate enough to work my own schedule, so I spent all day with my father cooking meals that his mother used to cook when he was a boy, hoping to make him feel more secure. I purchased his favorite foods and treats, and I took walks around his condo development, talking to him about the past and trying to bring the present into the conversation. I never mentioned his disease to him. I find too many people talk to Alzheimer’s victims as if they’re not there, and/or they try to correct the mistakes they make. They are going to forget a few minutes later; however, those few minutes of confusion fills them with terrible trepidation and guilt. The two weeks I spent with my father, I was either his mother, or sister, and I played the role. I never allowed him to feel uncomfortable or confused or angry with himself. You can’t reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, so the best a caregiver can do is to ‘go with the flow’ and bask in the victim’s moments of happy reflection, or segue into something that will make the victim’s mind switch gears from the torment of not remembering.

Alzheimer’s disease comes in four stages. The first stage can go unnoticed for five to ten years. The second stage is when the person knows he or she has the disease and is angry at themself because they can’t remember what they are saying. The third stage is when the afflicted no longer knows he or she has Alzheimer’s and it no longer bothers them. This is the calm before the storm, the time some greater force gives us to strengthen our resolve to withstand the onslaught of the end. Alzheimer’s disease, depending on the person’s care and genetics can last from a few years to 10-15 years in length, and sometimes longer.

My father finally got to the point where we couldn’t take care of him anymore. He couldn’t dress himself, he didn’t want to eat, he couldn’t bathe, and he couldn’t control his bodily functions. We had a family meeting. Because of the effect it was having on my mother, my brothers and I decided it was time to place him in a home where he would get better care. However, no one can take care of an Alzheimer’s patient better than their loved ones in a familiar familial setting. Friends, aides, church/synagogue members, and support groups will help out if you ask for that help (that’s what your local Alzheimer’s chapter is for). It is not the time to be proud.

We told my father he was going into the hospital (not a home, which scared him) because he wasn’t eating and we needed to build up his strength so he could come home. We told him that every time he said he wanted to leave with us. (Sometimes you have to hide the truth to assuage their fears.) It was a sickly feeling walking away from him that first time, leaving him in the company of strangers, some who were so far gone that it was like an insane asylum for children. As I left, I turned and looked at him sitting in a wheelchair, scared. I felt like I was abandoning him. He looked as if he was being abandoned.

I never felt so guilty in my life.

My father got worse very quickly. He would walk into other peoples’ rooms and get in their bed, thinking it was his room. He would sit in the cafeteria staring at his food, not knowing what to do with it, until he wilted down from 180 pounds to 105. He smiled whenever he saw us, but I don’t think he knew who we were. However, we continued to visit him regularly, hoping he might have a second of remembrance and happiness.

My father and I had a special relationship. I became what he always wanted to be. I was in show business. At the opening night performance of my Broadway musical, CANTERBURY TALES, I remember watching him stare at my name above the title, the pride so evident on his face. When the show ended, I watched him stand with the audience, applauding, tears streaming down his face. He thought I could do anything. My father, although a brilliant artist all his life like his own father was, was foremost a teacher in my eyes. He taught me to reach for the stars, to dream, and to not give up; to be who I am, to be proud and confident, to seek solace with my conscience, to revere wisdom and beauty, to hope and help others. I never remember him voicing a negative comment, nor speaking a harsh word, nor espousing a prejudicial epithet toward, or about, anyone or anything. There was a preponderance of love in him, a love that was visible and shared with all he came into contact.

Family was all-important, all encompassing to my father. He loved my mother unconditionally, and his children and grandchildren passionately. He wasn’t a religious man, nor was he a pious man. To him, humanity was his persuasion. To live life with dignity, with compassion toward (wo)man and nature, and respect for yourself, made my father a reverent man, a humanitarian, in our eyes.

Finally, after four years, my father’s kidneys failed and he was rushed to the hospital. The family was called, and as we had a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order, we went to the hospital to stay with him until he passed on. I remember my brothers and sister-in law, and my wife and children, kiss him goodbye in the emergency room. He was slipping into a coma, and it was heart-wrenching watching him leave us. I was the last one to say goodbye. I took his hand, kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear how much I love him. I then said, “I just got my first novel published.” To my shock, and happiness, he squeezed my hand slightly to let me know he was proud of me.

It was the last memory my father took with him.

And it was beautiful for both of us.

Bruce Schwartz is a political activist and author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, the story of a nationwide terrorist attack, which ignites a race/class war seven days before the American presidential election. He has also written other novels, three children's books, and six musicals. He is presently writing the screenplay for THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, as well as a weekly TV dramedy. He has received numerous accolades for his writing. His site http://www.thetwentyfirstcentury.com is offering a 3-day, 2-night vacation to one of 90 destinations (no time share, no sales pitch of any kind) for buying a copy of this timely and topical novel. He will also autograph the book for you.

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