Half – Finished Heaven

By Xlibris US

Half-Finished Heaven is a love story about Alzheimers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499075502

Book preview

Half – Finished Heaven

August Franza

Copyright © 2014 by August Franza.

ISBN:      Softcover        978-1-4990-7551-9

                eBook            978-1-4990-7550-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/13/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Also by the Author

Half-Finished Heaven

Minus

2009

1 Day to Day

2 Life to Life

3 Day to Day

4 Life to Life

5 Day to Day

6 Life to Life

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

Also by the Author

The Murder of Hitler

The Events at Vista Bay

If I Die Before I live

Bloodstream

American Ecstasy: a trilogy

His Father’s Son

A Dual Novel

How Shall I put This? (short stories)

The Kierkegaard Novel

Four Short Novels

The Grand Highway

America Arriba!

The Skin Game

A Flea’s Notebook

Arrow of Longing

NOTE

The journal entries cover the years 2009-2014 chronologically.

The narrative portions move back and forth among the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s.

Half-Finished Heaven

It was hard not to probe. That’s what he was doing because of her illness. Their illness. He didn’t want to be false, he didn’t want to omit or be cautious. If he had to conceal, then don’t write it down. He had read some published memoirs of Alzheimer’s Disease. They tried desperately to be uplifting, to find some crumbs of relief. He rebelled against that. It was a nice human-humane effort but not worth the time. If he were going to do it, write it, it would have to be all or nothing. He knew right away that ‘all’ was impossible but it would work as a goal. It would justify what he was trying to do: tell it, but not in the way of expose’ but in the way of accuracy, accounting and feeling.

*

I was out on my daily walk, a regular thing I’ve been doing for fifty years. Walking’s good for your health, I’m told, but what I like most about it is being alone, in touch with the sky, the clouds formations, the dreaminess that brings. There’s a difference between being alone and being with one’s self.

I’ve been married to Amy fifty-five years. Good ones, until five years ago when the roof fell in and came crashing down on top of us.

Yeah, that’s right. Alzheimer’s.

As Amy’s prime ‘caregiver’, I’ve seen all the classic symptoms and watched her slow decline. I knew there was nothing to be done except selfless care and love. I think I’ve handled myself pretty well; the people around me say so; they keep telling me; they approve of my behavior. That constant approval makes me think I surprised them. They seem grateful for my sacrifice, but I don’t see it as a sacrifice. If you love someone, if you have a long history of rich memories, if you remember how you met, how you loved, how you engaged and developed and matured, if you can eradicate, ignore, or simply set aside the conflicts that seemed to plague you at the time, if you are proud of one another, if you have developed an unbroken bond, there is no sacrifice that sullenly eats at you . . . .

Am I going through an ordeal? Some people think so but it’s not a word I would choose. Not after decades of her warm body next to mind. I mean, mine.

A day (or year) or so ago — that’s all that’s needed – I was out doing my walk which I’ve done for fifty years at various paces. It was windy and a pretty stiff wind was coming off the bay. I was dressed warmly but still… I was picking up speed when I ran into Jeanie. I run into her every couple of months. She’s a walker, too, but our paths seldom cross. We stopped, facing each other. Jeanie’s cute, big blue eyes and she talks with them. She seldom blinks. Upbeat. A conversationalist.

Come on, she said, changing her direction to flow with me. It’s too cold to stand around. I’ll walk with you. How’s Amy?

The last time I met Jeanie she also asked about Amy. After I went through the day-to-day, she told me clear-eyed about her mother’s Alzheimer’s. She ended with, Well, Gus, life goes on.

That cliché irritated me.

When we parted that time after twenty minutes of the usual, she said she had a present for me and Amy.

What’s that? I asked. I didn’t pull that you shouldn’t have bothered stuff.

I don’t have them with me, she said, but I’ll bring them over. It’s rosary beads. I want you to have them for your peace of mind. The both of you.

I was surprised and I made a noise that must have sounded to her as a chuckle.

Don’t laugh, she said. Why are you laughing? They’re for you and Amy. They’re from the Blessed Mother.

No, I said, pulling a blank. I wasn’t laughing, Jeanie.

Yes, you were. That’s why you need them.

I guess I was careless. Even though her eyes stayed bright and blue, I think she was upset because we never got the rosary beads.

Now, months later, I’m walking with Jeanie again. She’s asking the same questions and I’m providing more or less the same answers, if a little darker.

You’ve got to be strong, Gus, she said, and you will be if you have faith.

I said, Yes, unremarkably.

She asked me how things were working out with our aide. I told her, Very well. She’s a wonderful woman.

That’s very important, Jeanie emphasized. My mother had the same woman with her the whole time. Mrs. Jensen. We’re still in touch. She goes to our church.

On we quickly walked, chatting. I asked for her husband; she asked how my adult kids were doing under the circumstances. Then out of the blue she asked, What are you going to do when Amy dies?

It came out of Jeanie sweetly, as if it were just another random question that comes along as we braved the wind and the chill.

I haven’t thought about that, I said.

Maybe you ought to. A guy like you can’t live alone; you need someone.

How Jeanie knew that I can’t say, but she said it with conviction.

Looking back now, I’m surprised that what she was saying was free of conventional niceties like, I know it’s none of my business but… or I hope you don’t mind my saying this… or I hope I’m not shocking you…. There were none of the obvious social cautions as she intruded into my ‘personal space’ and ‘obvious sensitivities.’ I put it this way because I wasn’t hurt to shocked at what she said. I’m what is known as ‘tolerant’.

What are you going to do when Amy dies?

I don’t know, I told Jeanie. It never enters my mind.

Maybe it should, she said.

I like being frank so I accepted Jeanie’s frankness as well-meant and well- taken. Not so my daughter Loren whose eyes bulged when I told her. And as she thought about it, she said she was getting angry. Very angry.

What business is it of hers? she fumed. She’s got some nerve hitting you with that. Who is this bitch, anyway?

I tried to put things in perspective.

Jeanie lives around here. She knows Amy; she knows the situation. I’m sure she meant to be helpful.

Oh, really? Loren was in no way pacified. What gives her the right to talk about my mother that way? And to you, especially! Who is this bimbo? Is she after you? Didn’t you say anything? I’d’ve… I don’t know what I would have done but I’d be pissed off. She has some nerve! Weren’t you pissed off?

Not really, I said, if you know Jeanie . . ."

I don’t want to know Jeanie. She’s got some balls!

I’m sure she meant well, I said.

Oh, yeah? Like wanting to take Amy’s place?

Of course not, I pleaded. She’s married.

Oh, Dad, Loren said, rolling her eyes. Oh, Dad!"

So… . the Question was asked. Had it been the elephant in the room?

Jeanie, I said, that’s not part of my plans. If I have any.

You should think about it, she came right back. Really, you must. I know a couple, they live close by. They both lost their spouses a few years ago. They met each other at our divine services group and they fell in love. They’re your age and they’re living happily now. They both have new lives. Do you know Don and Marie Carroll?

I said I didn’t.

Well, you should, she said, her blue eyes sharp and riveted on me.

Not my style, Jeanie. I’ll stick with Amy as long as I can.

Of course you will. No one would expect anything else from you. But it’s a good idea to think ahead.

Not now, Jeanie.

Oh, I know, Jeanie said, but you’ll see.

What would I see? Not what Jeanie sees.

And I’m still waiting for the rosary beads.

Minus

No. I was not going in. I was never going in.

One look and I knew. I didn’t care what anybody said or thought. It didn’t even skirt my mind. They all went in and I didn’t. Rob brought me pictures on his digital camera and what I saw convinced me to retreat. Call me a coward, call me namby-pamby, call me a cream puff, call me whatever you want. This was my wife but what I saw was a thing.

Everybody went in and stayed. All except me. I couldn’t bear to look at her. That was no ‘person’ lying there. The whole medical thing made me sick. And all this a year after we got the diagnosis of the big A.

She was stuck with tubes, tubes, tubes coming out of every part of her. Her fine nose was draped with the oxygen. The yellow urine bag hung lopsided at the foot of her hospital bed. The room was cold and blue, filled with machines. The room, I guessed, must be ferociously silent, even though eight people – my family — sat aroundthe sick bed. They were watching with stunned expressions. They were waiting. All they heard was a continual pinging from blue machines. They watched the coming and going of nurses.

I don’t recall what I did for those seven days she was strapped and tubed and monitored in ICU. I must have wandered around skittishly, I must have slept a lot, I must have read the dull papers, I must have watched the blur of television.

51986.png

How did this begin? It didn’t begin. It just kept going. Amy was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2009. And then 2010 happened.

In September 2010 the kids and I became alarmed. We conferred, then rushed Amy to the ER at Mather. She hadn’t been eating and was coughing raucously. She was under doctors’ care, not one but two or three or four, but not one had picked up the deeper signals – not the doctors (including a pulmonary specialist), not the family, not I. Tests didn’t shown anything much: she has a cold, she has a cough, bronchitis. They said, it’s persistent but it’ll pass.

It didn’t.

And we had a much more serious issue to think about than her cough. All that was on our minds was the big A. We were learning how to deal with IT. We were scurrying everywhere to find ways to comfort her and protect her: sideboards for the bed, alarms that would go off if she tried to get out of bed, alarms that would alert me if she tried to leave the sofa in the den if I made lunch, made coffee, had to take a leak… . anything. The cough? That’ll pass. Loss of appetite? It’s the disease.

Amy was admitted to the ER then and there, suffering from – get this – malnutrition and a pneumonia.

How could that be? Why hadn’t anyone caught it? No professional had taken any action until we did and by that time things were going downhill. And I mean downhill. Fast. It was worse than that because we thought we had already hit bottom the year before.

51934.png

2009 and 2010 were terrible years, A devastating one-two punch, the worst in our long life together. What do you do when your buddy is getting the business? My wife. My buddy. How do you get past the shock? The violent change? How do you recoup the past? The safe past?

The infection, the pnuemonia, the EMPYEMA (from the Greek meaning ‘PUS’, I looked it up) is a collection of that muck between the outer and inner surfaces of Amy’s chest wall, it filled one half of one lung and startled doctors. One (who told us later) was guessing cancer. There was panic in the air. The amount of pus was so large and thick they couldn’t drain it all. They determined that she go into ICU and soon after they said surgery was necessary. Full speed ahead. It was like watching a movie. The movement of people accelerated: doctors, nurses, aides, everyone. Their attention alerted, eyes focused, expressions became set in grim obedience to instructions.

What the hell was going on? Hadn’t we had enough?

So there she was, in an encumbered bed, looking like a stuck pig. She ended up with a 20 day hospital stay, 7 in ICU. When I summoned the courage to see her, she was bandaged like an Egyptian mummy. When she was released she was so weak she spent 50 days in Rehab learning to eat and walk again. She had lost twenty pounds, pulling her down to 109. A feeding tube had to be inserted, put in her stomach. How could we have been so negligent?

We – the loving and attentive family, and doctors both. There was perhaps an answer: the looming thing had distracted us. We thought Alzheimer’s was the worst things could get.

51937.png

2009

We were in Florida for the winter, having rented a condo on the ocean. Amy was at the dining room table which was overflowing with paperwork. This was typical of her because she had always taken care of our finances and always took care of them with precision and zeal. She loved numbers and figures and checking things out" the challenge they presented. Our credit rating was perfect, we owed nobody anything, she balanced the checkbook to the penny – every month. She had some control of our existence, unlike me, who floundered through C-span and The New York Times every morning, not knowing what to look for but being hammered daily by nasty events out of my control. I was unable to extract anything but fear and dread while Amy planned our trips to the American West, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean with her organization and impressive zeal.

Amy was happy while I persisted at my doomed efforts to get the world straight. On that particular warm and bright day at Hutchinson Island in March of 2010, with a glittering ocean at our feet, Amy worked away at the dining room table. On it was a new clutter of paperwork responding to her precision and

care.

Until it all ended.

I hadn’t noticed that a couple of hours had passed and she was still working at our bills and finances (I couldn’t count and add or multiply; Amy was sharp with numbers) when she suddenly stood up at the table, crying, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.

I jumped up, threw my book aside and rushed to her.

What happened, Ame? What’s the matter?

I can’t do it, I can’t do this anymore, she cried. And then I saw A river of tears.

Something’s wrong. I can’t do this anymore.

I embraced her and felt the rigidity of her body.

What’s the matter? I asked, looking down at the confused spread of papers. What can’t you do?

I’ve been sitting here for hours, she moaned, and it doesn’t make sense anymore. I can’t get it right.

Come and sit down, I said. I’ll put everything together.

No, no, she cried, it’s not finished. I’ll do it later.

But later she was still confused and growing even more perplexed.

"I can’t even add up a group of numbers. I can’t balance the

checkbook. Nothing makes sense anymore."

For the rest of our stay in Florida, I helped her organize our affairs. Being no number cruncher, I did the best I could with Amy beside me trying to explain to me what needed to be done.

When I review my journal entries for 2009, I find a somewhat different story, more precise than memory.

1

Day to Day

4/l6/09:

Amy was doing bills, as usual, when she got up and said, I don’t want to say this but I think something’s wrong. I’m taking twice as long to do bills and I keep going over the same things, over and over. And then she broke down and wept like I’ve not seen in a long time.

She wept on my shoulder as she confessed that she feared the onset of dementia. I held her for a long time until she was relieved and then I said we could see a neurologist and get some tests done. It struck me that for a pretty long time she’s complained of forgetting things, of memory loss, of not being able to follow the plot of a movie. Today she admitted the change and admitted her fears."

5/13/09:

Amy is agitated about her inability to control paperwork, checkbook, mail. I propose solutions, she rejects them.

5/16/09:

Amy says she’d rather have cancer than head trouble.

5/29/09:

We went to see Dr. J. She wants Amy to get blood tests, a brain scan and see Dr. G at State University. What will we tell this Dr, G. Amy’s fear about her family history, inability to do her bookkeeping, continually misplacing things, cutting up address stickers and rolling them into tiny balls, not recalling a movie the next day. She couldn’t even recall baseball plays minutes after they occurred. She loved baseball.

6/9/09:

I was playing P.F.’s Dark Side of the Moon when Amy came in and said, Turn that off, please, I find that very upsetting. This was a different Amy.

6/11/09:

Took Amy for a brain scan. Dr. G will see us at 9:20 on July 10th. Ten minutes per patient, doc?

Amy’s under great pressure. She told me, out of nowhere, I want to die first.

What are you talking about? I asked as I took her hand. Why?

Because you’ll survive. But if you die first, I won’t survive.

How do you know that?

Because I know.

I didn’t know what to say. It’s something I’ve never thought about. She’s surprising me with her candor. I embraced her. We just held on to each other.

6/21/09:

Amy in tears, unable to find some papers. Then we had to go to the bank to get a clerk’s help to balance our checkbook. She hated having to do that. She was in tears in the car. This is my work, she cried, and I can’t do it.

6/23/09:

I was telling Amy about the book I was reading when she broke in saying, Enough, Gus. Enough. It’s interfering with my peacefulness.

7/1/09:

Amy wakes out of a sound sleep and says: What’s The Sword of Damocles?

I’m not sure, I said. Some kind of a danger that’s coming. I checked it out later: a guest cannot enjoy a banquet because a sword over his head is hanging by a thread.

That’s Amy’s mood.

7/10/09:

We saw Dr. G. at Neurology. The waiting room was immense and was stuffed with patients of all ages and, I guess you would say, various stages of the ‘disease’, as they call it in the information they handed out. But first there was the interview in a barren room the size of a cubicle. Nothing in it except a desk a computer and two chairs. Bare empty walls. His personality complemented the cubicle: stiff, distant, barren. We gave him the info we had prepared; he put it into the laptop. He gave Amy a verbal test regarding memory and arranged for appointments for two sessions of extended testing.

7/20/09:

Amy had another anxiety attack, really weeping, hands shaking. It’s about the doctor appts. She fears not remembering why she’s calling.

She said, I feel like a little girl who got lost. That chilled me.

8/509:

I really don’t know what’s up. How bad is she? We’ve been so lucky in life so far, now what?

8/10/09:

Amy’s dream: A little girl walked into the ocean and drowned.

8/20/09:

I don’t know what to do. I want to help Amy but she wants her independence, to do things herself and then runs into trouble.

8/23/09:

The goddamn Levitra isn’t working anymore. Why is this happening? It doesn’t matter if it’s Viagra or Cialis. It’s me and the miserable headaches I get from it.

9/1/09:

Loren is helping Amy balance the checkbook. She’ll be Amy’s backup now. Amy is ashamed and insulted to have to go to the bank for help. Loren can manage; it’s her own blood.

9/15/09:

Amy very upset about overpayment of the mortgage. She’s never made mistakes like that. She didn’t know how the numbers and payment fit. I want to help but I am useless when it comes to numbers. I’d make more mistakes that she does. She was always so proud of her accurate work. We’re careful with the credit card, we never pay interest, and our credit rating is A#1.

10/1/09:

I was preparing breakfast. Amy got up, came into the kitchen, stood by the counter and cried: I CAN’T HELP IT! I CAN’T HELP IT! She breaks into tears, heavy tears of sadness. I ran to her, embraced her, supported her. There were no words between us. What could they be?

10/15/09:

Amy took the tests at SU with Dr. L who explained they’re not IQ tests; they’re brain function tests. He tried to put her at ease. These memory tests were quite detailed. I could see she wasn’t doing well. Dr. L. asked Amy if she would see a shrink. She might, she said, if it would help.

10/27/09:

We saw Dr.L. for the second and last test. He seems much more personable than Dr. G. That helps. He’s surprised and impressed by Amy’s good physical condition and the fact that she is not on any drugs. He said there is brain function loss and the ability to pay attention. He gave us the name of three psychologists that we can choose from to help us deal with this new and frightening knowledge.

10/28/09:

I wrote

The sunset was gorgeous and yet it failed,

Or it went to someone else’s eyes.

Going to someone else’s eyes is not so bad

If that’s the case.

If it isn’t,

The sunset truly disappeared.

11/1/09:

Stunned, absolutely stunned by the meeting with Dr. G. Shocked.

Dumbfounded. He sat us down and with no preparation or lead-in told Amy that YOU HAVE ALZHEIMER’S.. Wham! The dreaded words. Amy wept, I, tears welling up, had trouble controlling my emotions. Dr. G. looked puzzled.

Didn’t Dr. L. tell you? No, he didn’t. In the car going home, we vented our outrage. The kids came over and we went through everything, made decisions, plans, getting a second opinion. Loren just couldn’t take it. Karen said she has a neurologist friend at the gym she’ll talk to. Amy was quiet. Rob strummed his guitar.

11/2/09:

Amy was upset this morning at the pressure she felt from the kids: Too many people giving orders, she said. The kids are only trying to help, I told her.

She changed the subject, spoke of her fears of driving at all but especially at night. When I said don’t worry, I’d do the driving, she cried, saying she hated being dependent.

11/3/09:

She went to the clubhouse to play canasta and came home saying she doesn’t want to play anymore. I’m not sharp. I’m not winning. She had an opportunity to learn Bridge but said I don’t want to. I won’t be good at it.

11/5/09:

I asked Amy this morning how she felt. She said, Morbid.

I had a strange dream. (Ain’t they all?) Some woman, troubled, with babies, overweight, unhappy. What am I doing in her house? Is her husband somewhere? I take a shirt out of a closet and it’s wet. I look up and find water leaking from the ceiling. It starts gushing out over everything and everybody: the woman, me, the babies. Where is the husband?

11/6/09:

Loren and I talked about Amy. The grim forecast, the questions we have,Dr. G.’s lousy bedside manner which was brutal. We’re all nervous and tentative.

From what I’m reading, he wasn’t even being accurate. There are many degrees of dementia. Which one haunts Amy?

2

Life to Life

Ame, do you remember anymore how we met? You used to but you can’t now. How can you? You’ve been robbed of whole parts of your life, of your memory; of our life, so let me remind you.

I was in the college cafeteria with some goofy friends and you were with your sorority (Pheela Betta Thigh, I used to joke). There were some