Dead Letter Department #100

what i brought to memory care

-large soft grey blanket from Costco, doubled over and wrapped around his shoulders, used for naps, or legs up time, which I encouraged at the end of the visit so I could tuck him in on the couch for a rest when I was leaving, partially on his account, since he was often tired after visiting, & partially on mine to avoid the heartbreak of him trying to follow me down the hallway.

“Can I come and live with you?” he asked once, in the early days.

“No,” I said, “I’m sorry, you can’t, but it’s very safe here & everyone is so nice.”

This was when he was still speaking full sentences, but not necessarily remembering the last thing said, so he then proceeded to tell everyone that we would be living together, because I was moving into the facility too.

-one 12” light blue Totoro stuffie, purchased in Seattle by my friends & my niece for his room, to remind him of afternoons watching Miyazaki with his grandkids, and, a generation earlier, with me.

“What’s his name again?” he’d ask me as he settled down onto the couch. “The blue bear?”

“Totoro,” I’d tell him. “Do you remember watching Totoro?”

-berries, assorted.

Strawberries were a favorite, though blueberries were also acceptable. I brought them to breakfast, usually, & learned my lesson the first time one of the other residents said, “Ooh, those look good,” & reached over to scoop a big handful right off Dad’s plate.

After that I shared them, which meant I also had to check with the staff to make sure everyone else at the table was allowed berries, and would borrow a spoon out of the cafeteria drawer to serve them to everybody.

One man kept saying, “Oh, these are so good. I haven’t had these in so long,” as I gave him more and more, and went from blankly stabbing at his institutional eggs to smiling widely at both me and the blueberries.

At the end of the season, Dad started to get a little bit cranky about the quality of the strawberries, so I switched to something else.

-3’x5’ tapestry of The Wave by Hokusai, inexplicably ordered from Shein in a fit of acquisitiveness, used briefly as a curtain, now reborn on the wall of his unit to combat the blank whiteness of it all, & to remind him of museum visits.

-5 Van Gogh prints (almond blossoms, sunflowers, Starry Night, etc) scattered around the room to add a little color. When I put them up, I was drawing his attention to the colors, talking to him about his favorite artist.

“I was thinking about all those essays you wrote about him,” I said, as I pushed the pins flat into the wall.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Cezanne.”

-print my sister’s friend made of a very Miyazaki-style landscape, for a little variety.

-small jar, formerly full of pimentos, now full of flat-top pushpins.

“You’ll need the ones with flat tops for your photos,” the admissions director told us. “And push them all the way into the wall.” I didn’t end up bringing photos. I couldn’t figure out what to bring. I didn’t have any we’d taken together since his wedding.

There was a photo collage his wife put up, of her kids & grandkids & the two of them, and sometimes I would point people out in it for him.

-a couple of books, including a graphic novel. I thought I might read to him, or sit together and look at the pictures, but whenever I visited he seemed to want to talk instead. A couple of times when it was quiet, I read him poetry off my phone, but this was a real landmine since the condensed emotion-bouillon of the poetry sometimes made me audibly unsteady, which was the opposite of the calm affect required for a remotely successful visit.

-CD player. At first I thought I might be able to show him how to put music on for himself, but his coordination was already so deteriorated by the time I brought it in that instead I used it for background music when we were sitting in his room, & to talk to him about all the concerts we went to. I always left it playing when I left, so the room didn’t seem so terribly silent when I was leaving.

After experimenting on my phone, jazz & most things with vocals seemed to be too agitating for him, so I brought Mstislav Rostropovich’s Bach’s cello concertos, several Beethoven symphonies, Beethoven’s violin concertos, & a collection of Eric Satie. In the last days, I played the Bach cello pieces over and over while I sat with him.

The hospice nurses would put it back on when they left, too.

-chocolate, all kinds. This was when I was just trying to tempt him to eat anything at all: dark chocolate, turbinado sugar & sea salt almonds; almond butter chocolate cups; caramel brownies.

-various clothes from the bags that didn’t come with him on the first day, as he seemed to be running low on things, or as they disappeared into the maw of industrial laundry despite the labels.

-apple pie, after he referenced his mother’s apple pies. We were having a conversation about seasons, because I always tried to tell him the weather, and how it was feeling outside if we didn’t make it all the way outside to walk around the patio, which led to a conversation about berry picking, and how the really good apples were just around the corner.

Of course, by the time I brought it the next day, he didn’t remember the conversation, & looked at me blankly when I tried to talk about it again.

He did eat some of the pie, though.

-little nail scissors, which I intended to use to trim him his eyebrows, but the staff beat me to the punch, doing both that & taking his beard down to just stubble, which startled me so much I almost didn’t recognize him at first.

-coffee, although this was not intentional, I just happened to be carrying it.

“Oh, can I have some?” he asked, so I held the bottom of my cup for him, because by that time, his hands were shaking. It was a mocha, and he was thrilled by it.

-Weleda Skin Food lotion, for his dry hands, which has a pleasantly herbal smell, and was a reason to give him a gentle hand massage. I did that sometimes, or just held hands, especially when we were walking, or gave him shoulder massages, during which I was terribly conscious of the way the weight was sloughing off him.

-Nemat amber roll-on perfume oil, which I put on his wrists, and later, when his skin got too delicate, onto the pillow.

-Plumeria roll-on perfume, also for his pillow. “It smells so good in here,” the hospice nurses said, so I explained about how he used to go to Kauai with his wife every winter for weeks, and I was trying to evoke some happy memories.

“What did they do there?” the nurse asked, clearly expecting to hear about a work trip, or a family visit.

“They were just in love, I think,” I told her.

-Mallard’s Super Chocolate ice cream. This was when he wasn’t leaving the bed anymore, or eating, but I was somehow convinced he might some rally a little bit if it was his very favorite thing, so I went downtown the night before & bought two pints, pulled the cooler out & washed it off, borrowed ice packs, wrapped a little spoon in a cloth napkin, and then sat next to him and fed him exactly one bite of ice cream. It was the last thing, other than the medication, the morphine, & the drips of water from the little red sponges.

The second pint is still sitting in my freezer.