This past Thursday night I walked into the nursing home to find my grandfather in the middle of the hallway in his wheelchair, trucker cap on his head and looking alert. This is a bit unusual - I've never seen him wear the cap before, though its been in his room for about a month, and he was in a different section of the hallway than I usually find him in. I caught his eye.
"Hey!" I said enthusiastically, "There you are."
"Hey!" he replied, just as happily, "You're just in time!"
"In time for what?"
"In time for the ballgame!"
I grinned. "What kind of ballgame?" "Baseball? Basketball? Football?"
"Don't know."
"Where's it happening at?"
"Right down there." He pointed down the hallway. My head turned, but I already knew what I would see. I had just come from that direction. A few people in wheelchairs were in the lobby. While they were watching television, no game had been on the screen and the TV wasn't visible from our position. I smiled.
"Who's playing?"
"Don't know."
"Is it baseball?"
"Yeah!"
"Has it started yet?"
"Not yet. Just about to."
For those who haven't heard, or have only caught the bits and pieces, my grandfather was diagnosed with dementia this past year. It's been a really difficult road full of lots of confusion - and not just on his part, in general. The past eight months or so have been filled with lots of fear, heartache and uncertainty about what's going on, what's right and what's the best way to accomplish it. There have been a lot of factors involved and while it's still an ongoing situation, he is currently in a nursing home that appears to love and take excellent care of him. And that's such an incredible, incredible blessing to us, especially considering Oklahoma is apparently 49th in the nation in terms of nursing home care. Yikes.
We chatted for awhile about other topics. He kept trying to prop his foot up on the nurses' disposal box on the side of their cart. "I think that's Billy's tool box," he finally said.
"Ah. Then we probably shouldn't mess with it then."
A few minutes later.
"Look! Here come the stars!"
I glanced back down the hallway. Far at the other end, one man walked slowly along on his walker.
"Anybody I know? Anyone famous?"
"Hog Bellys!"
This is actually what his trucker hat reads. Hog Bellys, Stink Bait Parlor. I have no idea where this cap came from, it just appeared one day in his room. This is something that has super impressed me in the midst of his dementia - he can still read. For a man that doesn't ever really know what's going on, he can still read. In fact, as we were sitting there during this discussion, he pointed out a word on the nurses cart and asked me what it meant. And I had no idea either, because it was some long medical term. But I knew the reason he didn't ask me about the other words was because they made sense to him - scissors, tape, medications, etc. He specifically recognized that he didn't understand what this particular word meant and he wanted to know.
But he will still misunderstand or reinterpret the words he reads. Hence, Hog Bellys, the now famous baseball player.
"Now they're all walking around the bases."
"Just a second grandpa, I'll be right back."
I stepped into his room for a minute and was caught off guard by the television being on his room since it had never been on before. In particular, it was on Thursday Night Football and I immediately understood. Since he had never talked about ball before, I wasn't sure where our sudden baseball game had come from, but now I got it.
In discussions before with various people, we've come to realize that probably most of what grandpa talks about isn't completely made up. Usually there's a connector somewhere, even if it's probably a book or movie he read thirty years ago that we just don't know about or an overheard bit from a conversation earlier in the day. And then his brain just takes a whatever tiny gem of it that gets brought up on a ride.
"Has the game started yet?"
"Nope. They're just walking around the bases."
"That's it? Just parading around the bases?"
"Yup. Maybe they'll get started soon."
We chatted awhile longer and then I headed home for the evening.
If you had told me at the beginning of all of this that eventually I would look forward to my trips to the nursing home, that it would be a joy and that it would be a piece of a puzzle that would begin to fundamentally alter my heart and mind, I probably would have doubted you. And the trips can still be, and will be often, hard. Despite that, however, there has been so much unexpected joy and love in the midst of all the mental confusion and heartache.
I got to watch a baseball game with my grandfather. I had never had the chance - or rather, took the chance - to do that before. The fact that I can say I have now, whether he remembers it or not, thrills my soul.
I hope Hog Bellys hit a home run.
Reading With My Brothers.
8 months ago