It was a morning in December of 2006 when we left you there. You could still walk then with help; someone had to hold your shaky right hand and wrap the other arm around your waist to steady your wobbly body. I helped you put on your white plastic sneakers with extra-big strips of Velcro. I also helped you with your jacket and a glove for your left hand; your right hand was so immobile it could not be worked into any glove or mitten. I buckled you up in the back seat of her white Volkswagen that she's had ever since you were sick.
Mom couldn’t believe the day had finally come after taking care of you for eight years. Eight years of you steadily getting worse, day after day. I was twenty-four when Mom told me there was something wrong with you. You couldn’t recognize a picture of a cat and were being examined by specialists. I don’t think I really understood what it all meant. The first year you were sick with Primary Progressive Aphasia, which would eventually lead to dementia and put you into a helpless vegetative state, you could still talk in complete sentences with a little prodding. I remember supplying you with the missing words to pull the sentences out of you.
Shortly after you were diagnosed, you shredded the old medical records of your patients in the basement. You sat on the brown shaggy carpet next to the two-and-a-half-foot-tall shredder. You fed that shredder piece after piece of paper for hours at a time. Stray strips fell on the carpet, clung to the white socks you pulled all the way up to the top of your calves, and trailed you as you walked throughout the house not knowing what to do but create more paper shreds. I said Mom should pay a company to shred your papers and she said it gave you “something to do.” Your entire twenty-five-year career as a doctor was reduced to several garbage bags full of shredded paper which Mom placed in the blue recycle bins on the street.
It was right after you got sick that I moved to New York and spent a year there. When I came back, you could only speak in clipped phrases, and a sadness sat behind what used to be your bright little eyes. I came by every so often and took you on trips to get out of the house and away from Mom who needed a break from taking care of you. Mom told me that when you and she found out about your illness, the doctors told her to divorce you so the State would have to take care of you and she could go on with her life. Of course, you could still understand then, and the fear that she would leave you never went away, even when you had seemed to lose other memories and faculties, so you followed her around all the time, like a devoted pet dog.
The day had finally arrived. You had toured the Veterans Association Hospital of Bedford when you were diagnosed and knew you would end up there. But you had no idea we were taking you there now and would be leaving you there to die. When we finally got there, I got out of the car and walked around to your side where I unbuckled your seat belt, held your hand, and protected your head from hitting the roof. We walked into the facility with its mint-green walls and inhaled the distinct institutional odor of old dying people. Mom left me with you while she let the staff know you had arrived with your tiny bag of the items listed on the packing list they sent: 10 sets of sweatpants and sweatshirts, 1 pair of PJs, and personal items such as your razor. She took the large round container of orange Metamucil with her which she said you needed to manage your constipation. She was intent on informing the staff immediately about your three-times-a-day need for the orange powdery stuff.
In the small room in the basement of the VA, you looked up at me. I think you knew something was different about the way I looked at you but you didn't know why I teared up. Mom came back, a nurse took you to your new room, and Mom and I walked over to meet with the staff, including a social worker and two head nurses.
I visited about every two to three weeks. I used to go more often, every week, but it got to be too much to see you in the state you were in so frequently. Spending time with you then meant something completely different than what it meant when you were well enough to walk. You were wheelchair-bound, did not recognize me, had wandering eyes that could not focus for more than a couple of seconds, could not speak a single intelligible word, were fed mushed-up unrecognizable food, and slept more than half of your day. When I visited you, I fed you and held you hand. I didn’t visit you to keep you company since you didn’t know I was there. I visited you because I cared about you and wanted to experience your presence. Simply holding your hand then was enough because it had to be.
BIO: Miriam Manglani lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and three children. She works full-time as a Sr. Technical Training Manager. Her poems have been published in various magazines and journals, including Cerasus Magazine, Sparks of Calliope, One Art, and Paterson Literary Review. Her poetry chapbook, Ordinary Wonders, was published by Prolific Press.
Leaving You
