Detained for Life

I wait to be buzzed into my grandfather’s unit at the Long Island State Veterans Home. “Welcome to Reflections” the banner above the two double doors says. My grandfather, 79-year-old Joseph Abel, was admitted to the Stony Brook nursing home in April. He is now in the dementia unit, but no one knows what he thinks or how he feels about his new home.

Dementia has been called the long goodbye. Not the kind of goodbye you give loved ones when you hold them tight for a couple of minutes then watch them walk away, get into the car and drive off. It’s the kind of goodbye that lasts for the rest of the patient’s life, whether it’s two years or 15. It’s the kind of goodbye my grandfather and I have endured.

Buuuzzz. I step into the main lobby.

The place looks like most nursing homes. A small dining room is on the left, followed by the nurse’s station. But this one is filled with war veterans, most of them World War II veterans. These men were once vibrant, prosperous and productive, but dementia has robbed them of all this and of their memories of the past.

Dementia is a disease that deteriorates a person’s mind and memory, and prevents the patients from performing everyday tasks. These veterans are prisoners of this disease. They are captured, detained and never set free.

“It’s a terrible disease, almost a reversal of the age process,” says Arthur Picciano, the unit’s head nurse. “People in the worst stages forget how to eat, have no gag reflex, curl up in the fetal position and will usually die from pneumonia.”

Picciano must be right; my grandfather eats with a spoon now. No forks or knives are to be found in his silverware roll. He doesn’t know his own name and wears shoes with Velcro fasteners. His face has few wrinkles and his eyes are still bright blue. Handsome is a good way to describe him.

“Hello grandpa.” I smile and brush my long, brown curly hair away from my face.

The man sitting and twiddling his thumbs shuffles his feet and looks confused.

“Remember me?”
He nods.
“Well then, who am I?”
“Well I don’t know…”

It’s the response I expected. I smile again and grab his hand to go for a walk down the hall, remembering something the head nurse told me: “Dementia patients always walk around, your grandfather does at all hours of the day. The disease knocks your circadian rhythm off. They just do the same things over and over again.”

The place has light pink floors and cream-colored walls. A Frank Sinatra picture hangs on the wall next to a fish tank. There are pictures of flags and World War II planes. During meal hours, a record of Andy Williams singing “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah” plays in the background along with other wartime songs. Like the welcome sign to the unit says, this is a place to “reflect.”

On the back of my grandfather’s bedroom door is a poster on yellow construction paper. It says: “Mr. Abel enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Korea. After the service he worked in the Capital Theater in New York City and for LILCO. Hobbies include: gardening, card playing and a member to the VFW.” A meager attempt to give value to a man’s history, I think.

What they don’t know about my grandfather is that he loves playing gin rummy, poker, solitaire and slot machines. He loved his job at LILCO and my family believes that’s where he was most happy. He drinks O’Douls as if it was real beer and sneaks sweets despite his diabetes. He is a Yankee fan and loves to camp. He worked hard and supported his family.

“He made the best homefries,” said his daughter and my mother, Susan Serignese, “and one of my fondest memories was when Nana and grandpa had a highball or two before dinner on Sundays. After, they would dance to Doris Day in the living room.”

His nurses describe Joseph Abel as easygoing, friendly and happy. But do they know he was married twice, I wonder, and that he has three kids and is a stepfather to three others? It is the same story for all the patients in the dementia unit. There is no bridge to a future and only a void to the past.

But that doesn’t mean dementia patients don’t experience moments of clarity. Another of Joseph’s granddaughters, Melissa Pollard, remembers driving him home after my high school graduation party in 2004. “We talked about the fun we had and how he was able to sneak a piece of cake without Uncle Robbie knowing,” she said, referring to one of his sons.

“It’s just sad that he will never be able to know his new great granddaughter or be able to remember giving me a black and white cookie and a half dollar when he would stop by for lunch when I was younger,” Melissa said.

“What time is it grandpa?” I ask, glancing at his watch.
He looks at his wrist, “umm 2:40.”
It is 1:00 on the dot.

Imagine a world where you don’t remember who you are and what you’ve done; where what you did five minutes ago is lost forever. My grandfather could eat a bowl of cereal, then help himself to another moments later because he had forgotten that he just ate.

“I felt terrible and guilty putting him in the home,” said Joyce Abel, Joseph’s second wife, “but I see him every other day for two or three hours.”

Joseph met Joyce in February of 1973 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, she would play bingo and he helped run it. They married six years later. It’s hard for her to see him, especially because he doesn’t know who she is or what they had together – more than 30 years in a cozy two-story house decorated with Norman Rockwell figurines in Holbrook.

“I have no regrets and would not have done anything different because Joseph always enjoyed what we did,” she said. “He loved to gamble in Atlantic City, but the last time we went he had forgotten how to play cards or use the slot machines.”

I say goodbye to my grandfather, give him a hug and kiss and say, “I love you.” He smiles. As I exit through the double doors I wonder if he has forgotten what love is, too.
Now it is my time to reflect.

My grandfather’s disease started about seven years ago. Simple tasks like driving, changing his clothes or knowing he was hungry became hard for him. He couldn’t finish sentences or remember where he was going; he would wander around the house or fumble with something for hours. It was as if he was a child of seven or eight – the age I was when I had my fondest memories of being with him. I remember playing cards with him at a table on the screened-in patio of his house. Coke cans, candy and cold cuts were always on the table, too. Grandpa’s house was always the place to be. He had Golden Grahams and Captain Crunch in the pantry – treats that were never to be found at home.

I snap back from reminiscing and remember another thing Picciano had told me, “Your grandfather is in the middle stages now, so there is more to come.”

I get into my car and drive past the nursing home’s bus. It’s painted white and decorated with an American flag and bald eagle on the sides. On the back of the bus I read, “You’re Following America’s Greatest Heroes.”
I begin to cry, because my family and I have been saying goodbye to one for almost seven years.