75
A Chap Named Parkinson
MY DAD’S ILLNESS was progressing rapidly and taking its toll on my mom too. She had to do so much for him—button his shirts and tie his shoes—in addition to grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, ironing. Under the best of circumstances, she wasn’t the most patient person, and my father’s spiraling needs sometimes left her feeling anxious and angry. The scenes from their marriage would now feature bickering, exasperation, retribution, shame. Yet they loved and cared for each other without fail; after dinner, they’d make sure each had taken their assortment of pills, which they kept in a plastic Pepperidge Farm bag on the kitchen table. They were determined to stay independent and wouldn’t accept any caregiving help, even though God knows we tried.
I hosted a big family bash in the Hamptons for my dad’s ninetieth. Before the party, I took him for a spin in my Thunderbird; walking out to the driveway, he told everyone he was going for a ride with a “real star.” As we drove along the glorious tree-lined streets of East Hampton, I was full of gratitude, so happy we could have that time together.
We made sure to have all the Southern foods he loved: honey-baked ham, fried chicken, cheese grits, biscuits, and a spinach salad （because I had to serve at least one healthy dish）。 Dessert was a seven-layer caramel cake from Caroline’s in Annapolis, caramel being my dad’s favorite. All of us—including his 10 grandchildren—gave speeches, and Carrie sang “I’ll Be Seeing You,” the World War II song my parents loved.
My dad gave a charming speech, explaining that he’d “outlined remarks mentally but did not commit them to paper because my constant companion—a chap named Parkinson—has inhibited my penmanship.” Then he presented his great-granddaughter Emily, Ray’s daughter, the grandchild my sister never met, with Emily’s charm bracelet, tinkling with silver mementos, including some from his travels. It was such a tender, melancholy moment—a reminder that we’d lost Emily and that my father might not be here much longer either.
The next day, I heard a soft thud on the front steps. My dad had lost his balance and lay crumpled on the concrete near the front door. I helped him up, sick with worry, especially when I saw that his glasses had somehow cut his face. He assured me he was fine. My dad was so thin—his belt cinched on the last hole to keep his khakis from falling down, skin hanging in flaps from his bony arms. Once I got him inside, I ran to the bathroom and fetched some Neosporin and a Band-Aid. I helped him apply it, which didn’t leave me a second to cry.
Johnny was the most reliable caregiver of us all, considering that he lived the closest to our parents and he’s the nicest person in our family （I think we’d all agree on that）。 He’d clean the gutters, move furniture, reprogram TVs, trim shrubs…on Sundays he’d sit with them at the dining-room table and help pay their bills. Once when the basement flooded, he spent hours upon hours over the course of days moving furniture, taking up the old carpet, including the tackboard and the mat, cutting it all up and putting it in the garbage, repacking the stuff that had been in wet boxes, and renting giant fans to dry everything out. Throughout the ordeal, our mom sat on the basement steps, taking it all in.
“Wow!” she said. “We’re working really hard.”
To which Johnny replied, “What’s this ‘we’ stuff?”
They laughed and laughed.
Kiki and I visited as much as we could. I remember one afternoon sitting with my dad on the front steps of their house, trimming his fingernails with the small, spring-loaded scissors in his red Swiss Army knife, taking each finger and holding it securely between mine as I carefully snipped, listening as my dad chatted about his college professors from 70 years earlier, recalling every name and what they taught as well as the other students in the class.
I looked out at the front yard, unchanged for 54 years save for the crab apple tree that had been cut down, the one that bore the arsenal of small projectiles with which we pelted the neighborhood boys. I thought about my dad carving neat patterns in the grass with his push mower. Calling down to the basement where I was practicing on our upright piano with the gummy keys, “Katie, play ‘As Time Goes By’！” Surveying the cicada carcasses littering the soil around the boxwoods, a glass of scotch in his hand, telling me that since they came every 17 years, he probably would never see them again.
WE GATHERED AT the hospital, moistening my dad’s mouth with a sponge on the end of a lollipop stick, kissing him, just being there. He’d been experiencing “sundowning,” the late-afternoon confusion hospital confinement can bring, where he’d yammer on about crazy things—some even raunchy, which was so out of character. But now his body was surrendering too—he slept most of the day. Knowing that hearing is the last thing to go, I’d brought my iPod, set up a small speaker in his room, and played Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Benny Goodman on a loop. I told my dad I loved him so much, that he was the best father and that I never could have done the things I had without his love and guidance—as true a sentiment as I’ve ever felt.