I Love You Infinity
by A.J. Daulerio
*****
“Throughout my sobriety, I’ve devoted many hours to Al-Anon meetings and therapy to help me process and clarify who my father was as a person. As close as we were at several points in my adult life, it also became impossible to overlook the other, more abusive parts of him, especially when I was very young. But I dedicated myself to the internal work of forgiveness, loosening the debilitating hatred I carried for far too long. I finally crossed over.”
*****
When I was 11, my grandmother was in a nursing home because no one could care for her anymore. She was a lifetime smoker, which led to emphysema, oxygen ventilators, and, eventually, her death. But the last year of her life was spent in a facility, even though I vividly remember her begging my father not to put her there. “Please, just let me go home!” But he and my grandfather sent her there anyway. I guess in everyone’s mind, it was where she needed to be.
I had no concept of what a nursing home was or what kind of people lived there, or how bleak it was, but after my first visit, this is what I concluded: it’s not a home but more like a sub-par hospital, and it feels like a prison. I totally understood why she was so afraid of it.
I’d never seen old people so ravaged. The ones who weren’t wandering around or in wheelchairs pushing themselves around with their feet were asleep in chairs with their eyes closed shut and their mouths wide open, wide enough to be either a yawn or a scream. The ones with their eyes open looked like they were waiting for someone to visit them or, better, take them back home—a real home—someplace that wasn’t full of strangers and beeping noises and brown plastic food trays.
When we first got there, an old woman in a wheelchair locked onto me. She was pushing herself around in socks with treads on the bottom. I stayed close to my dad and avoided eye contact by staring at the floor, but then I looked up, and there she was, just a few feet in front of me. She had thick white hair that was very short. She reached out for me, witch-like, but I ran away. “Little boy! Oh, little boy! Please come here.”
It was as upsetting a moment as I’d ever experienced. I never visited my grandmother at that nursing home again, and my father understood. Nonnie died soon after that. It happened in the middle of the night while visiting my aunt in Rhode Island. We drove all through the night in a snowstorm back to Philadelphia, so my dad could be there for his father, who was drowning in sadness and guilt.
******
I took a red-eye flight to Ft. Lauderdale last week to visit my father in his new memory care facility, located near a tiny part of Palm Beach County called Tequesta. He’s finally here after almost a full year of chaos trying to find a place for him to go, since my mother could no longer care for him anymore, either. None of this process has been enjoyable for anyone—especially for my mom and my sister—but for most of the past couple months I have held on to a pulsating resentment against my mother because she sent him to this place. Even if it was unjustified, it was an adequate substitute for grief.
The other, actual grief, seemed equally as selfish. To force my brain into a cascade of memories and missed opportunities with my father as I visited him in the ballsack of south Florida—an endless loop of on-hold muzak from Harry Nilsson, Neil Young, or Cat Stevens—was a total waste of time. As I saw it, my job was to show up and keep emotion out of it. There was so much emotional overload—hot-headed melodrama by him and overwrought sentimentality by me—that I decided it was time for one of us to become more evolved and keep feelings out of it.
Throughout my sobriety, I’ve devoted many hours to Al-Anon meetings and therapy to help me process and clarify who my father was as a person. As close as we were at several points in my adult life, it also became impossible to overlook the other, more abusive parts of him, especially when I was very young. But I dedicated myself to the internal work of forgiveness, loosening the debilitating hatred I carried for far too long. I finally crossed over to the He Did the Best He Could side of the aisle.
*****
His facility was shockingly white-colored and it was shockingly clean. There was a tastefully ornamented, real-live Douglas fir at the front desk. The woman at the reception area warmly greeted my mother as she scanned us in.
We met him in one of the common areas where all the residents congregate, most of them in wheelchairs. A man sat on a stool on a mini stage singing Christmas carols from a feedback-filled karaoke machine. There were nursing aids in each corner of the room, some seated, some stood, and some were on their phones. My father sat in the back on a cushioned chair while still holding the handlebars of his walker. He looked several years older since I saw him a few months ago.
It was difficult to assess whether or not he was following along with the song or was patiently waiting to be moved someplace else. I walked up and grabbed his wrist, and leaned down to shake his hand. He looked up, but he didn’t recognize me. He knew I was somebody, but he was not sure who. I was not a threat, though.
My mother made the introductions. “Do you know who this is?”
“Yeah!” he said. “You’re a good guy!”
When I visited him in August, he didn’t address me by my first name either—it was mostly “good guy” before he’d briefly remembered that I was his son.
But he was elated to see my mother. “You’re so beautiful! I love you so much.”
He must have said “I love you” a dozen times throughout the 90-minute visit. And each time he said, “I love you!” she’d say, “I love you more!” Then he’d go, “I love you most!” and she’d say, “I love you infinity!”
This was the goodnight routine my mother and I used to do with each other when I was a little kid as she tucked me into bed. She’s tried to do it with my kids, but they haven’t caught on. When none of them follow up with “I love you most!” she takes it as a personal failure. But my father can’t say it enough today.
This is such a drastic shift from where they were during the last few months they were at the independent living facility together. My mother was drained of most of her life force, counting out his dozen pills twice daily, attempting to bathe him without getting punched or making sure he hadn’t urinated on himself before they made their way down to the dining area. She clearly couldn’t take care of him anymore, and the situation was becoming more dangerous by the day.
“Oh, I love you, you so so much beyond infinity,” my father said again, inching closer and closer to hold her hand.
Then he calls her “pretty lady” and even though my mother knows this child-like adoration is just as much a part of the disease as it was when they were still living together and he would physically attack her or call her “a fucking bitch” when she wouldn’t get him a glass of water quickly enough, she still blushes.
*****
For most of my life, I have not been good with physical affection. One of Julieanne’s biggest complaints about me is that when she tells me she is sad, she craves a hug from me. She says I’m a good listener but very bad at the physical connection part. This all came up in our couple’s counseling recently. When she mentioned it, I felt the familiar flush of shame and embarrassment, which has historically led me to white-hot anger followed by a total disconnect. But I did not do that this time—as much as I wanted to deny her claims and rattle off a list of times I’d provided adequate physical comfort for her in the past couple of years, I realized I’d only prove her point.
Our therapist casually mentioned that an inability to show physical affection could be from some past trauma—he was generalizing, but in my case, I believe that’s correct. My history of being badly touched or fondled when I was young is so hazy it’s practically irretrievable, but for almost 40 years, I have felt its shadow across my body, causing me to not only withhold some forms of physical affection but to, on some occasions, recoil and pull away. The who, when, or why it happened no longer matters as much—I now just accept it as valuable data.
My fears were tested on the second and final day I visited my father. And in addition to my mother, my aunt, and her husband also came along. My aunt has watched the deterioration of my father’s brain and my mother’s sanity, so she’s happy that everyone’s finally safe. Although she pulled me aside and admitted that she’d had uncomfortable interactions with some of the residents. “Every time I leave here, I need to get a drink right after.” I totally get it.
We all head into the common area, where we find my dad and half the facility sitting through yet another batch of Christmas carols sung by a different old man, who is also playing a small keyboard. Today’s crew is more spirited, singing and clapping through “Jingle Bells.” Then a woman in a wheelchair pulls on my arm, bringing me in inches from her face. She is trembling and tearful. “I love you!” she said. I did not pull away. I leaned down and looked straight at her, almost into her. “I love you, too!” And then I touched her arm, and she practically floated away. “You know me!” she said. “Of course I do. I met you yesterday.” Then she pulled me in closer, but a nurse finally got between us. “Now, come on, Harriet. Let’s let this man spend time with his family.” Harriet wouldn’t take her eyes off me. “But I want to keep him for me!” Her face wilted. But I promised her I’d see her later and hugged her goodbye.
We grabbed my dad and began to make the slow, shuffling walk back to his room so he could pee. He was so excited by all the company he had, and at one point, he stopped and looked at me. “There’s A.J.,” he said. I almost floated away.
While he was in the bathroom, another resident headed toward me. She wore an oversized blue floor-length skirt and what looked like clunky brown Mary Janes, strolling with her arms out real wide like she was soaring or getting her wingspan measured before the NBA draft combine. Her pace and her shuffling gait gave her an It Follows-vibe. Had I been 11, I definitely would have screamed very loudly or possibly fainted.
My father came out of the bathroom, and we all made our way to a large cushioned bench at the end of the hall. We got him there, and as I sat him down, I felt two hands pulling me away. As I expected, it was the soaring woman. Before I could even attempt an escape, she fully interlocked her fingers with mine, and we were walking hand in hand like two high school sweethearts headed to a spring formal.
One of the nurses walked behind me. “This is Mickey. You probably look like someone she knew long ago.” The nurse began to separate us, but Mickey yanked my hand back and motioned for the nurse to scram. “Well, you’re not getting away from her. Sorry!” the nurse said.
******
We finally got settled on the bench. My mother was to his left, and my aunt to the right. My father was beaming.“All these pretty ladies!”
My mother asked if any of my children had blue eyes. They do not. “Ozzy has green eyes,” I said. The other two have brown eyes. “What color eyes do I have?” my father asked. Then it came back to him. “I got a couple. Half blue and half brown.”
I have it, too. It’s a form of heterochromia that comes from his side of the family. His mother had it—one brown eye with sideways stripes of blue and green. His eyes are predominantly brown, with light blue flecks, like igneous rock. Mine are a bit more pronounced—one eye is very blue with a brown pie piece, and the other is light brown with a blue stripe. I have been told that I look like a Siberian husky when the sunlight hits them.
“We’re the good ones,” my father said. I leaned in to show him my eyes, and then he took off his glasses to lean and show me his and we both began to laugh as we almost bonked faces. He turned to my mother, almost tipping over with joy. “This is so much fun!”
He put his glasses back on and adjusted them. Then he turned to me, and his expression changed once again. Another flash hit him. He held up his hand as if he’d just stumbled upon me walking down a strange empty road. His voice grew softer and slower, the full lethargy of dementia on display. “My son…this is my son. You’re my son. You beautiful man. My son.”
Then there was a pause. “I love you,” he said, his voice sounding young and unsure. I told him I loved him, too. It spilled out of me so quickly. Where has this place been all my life? I couldn’t wait to get home and hug Julieanne.
*****
Here’s the video I took of that day. I was trying to send a video back to my kids and just happened to have captured that last exchange you just read. I’m not trying to exploit this moment, but I’ve written enough about the complicated, tormented history with my father and his dementia, so I think maybe this is the best way for you all to meet him finally. It’ll be one of the first memories I’ll reach for when I think of him.
