When my mother-in-law was alive, he often handed her the phone within moments of my calling, seemingly happy enough to know that I had called and yielding the rest of the time to his wife of over 60 years. “I feel fine, but they tell me I’m sick!” I could picture the way he turned his head and raised a bony shoulder into the shape of the question, wondering whether the entire hospital staff was one taco short of a combination plate. His spirits sounded good, even when he told me he didn’t know why he was in the hospital. “It’s my birthday!” he said, sounding as delighted as a child announcing the fact in a first-grade classroom. He paused before asking, “What day is it?” I was relieved that he recognized my voice, that he still knew my name. I heard his breath against the receiver, like a young child waiting for the phone to speak, and I said hello. The nurse answered pleasantly, and there was a scratching sound and a muted voice as she handed him the receiver. He has been fathering me for 30 years – since I was 23 – and he’s the only dad I have left.Įven if he didn’t know what day it was, I did. It wasn’t so much that I was nervous to talk to him as it was that I worried that when I did get through, he would be more confused, less himself. On his 92nd birthday, I sat at the dining room table with the morning light filtering through the South-facing windows and my heart thumping anachronistically. It’s better to talk to him in the morning. For him, time itself seems to take on an otherworldly quality, where present, past and future blur together. ![]() He’s on the East coast he already has a three-hour head start, and as the day progresses, my father-in-law becomes increasingly disoriented. Some days, after several conversations with the main switchboard, she gently suggests that I call back later. On a good day, I speak to the operator only twice before I get through. I might finish my morning coffee while I wait. I’m often on hold for 10 or 15 minutes before I hang up and try calling again. The line rings at the nurses’ station, and if they have time – between distributing meals and administering medications and the myriad other life-affirming tasks they do – an angel might pick up the phone and then walk it into my father-in-law’s room. There are no phones in the patients’ rooms on the memory ward. ![]() ![]() Most times when I call, the phone just rings and rings.
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