By Al Drinkle
A few years ago I made a hectic day-trip to Edmonton for business, and happily a small window in the schedule allowed me to visit my grandfather in his care home. After the three-hour drive north, I was dropped there by a colleague under a blindingly clear June sky. I checked in at the front desk and rode the elevator to the third floor, sensing the Reaper lurking around every corner.
My grandfather was in his room, as usual. A nurse stood at the side of his wheelchair, ineffectually attempting to direct his attention to a book of word puzzles. As I entered, she flashed me a look of relief and hastily made her exit. “How're you doing, Grandpa?” I asked, expecting his typically upbeat response. It had been some years since he was able to place me, although I always sensed that he still recognized in me somebody of significance to him. This time, my question was ignored and he showed no more regard for me than he had for the frustrated nurse.
“I just don't know where she could be,” he said with consternation, pushing the puzzle book away. He seamlessly mumbled a few more concerns along similar lines before I feigned confusion and asked who he was talking about. “Myrna. Myrn,” he moaned. “I just don't know where she could be.”
Myrna was my grandmother—my grandfather's late wife of over 60 years who had passed away amidst his dementia. Along with his siblings, my father had initially decided that despite the importance of the news, it wasn't worth sharing with somebody who was no longer capable of creating and retaining new memories. My grandfather was led to believe that his wife was in a different care home, as she had been prior to her death. Only somewhat later, after he had rightfully identified that he hadn't seen her in an exceptionally long time, was my grandfather formally enlightened by his sons and daughter that his wife had in fact passed on.
As this was months later, I didn't know what I was supposed to do when I found him in a state of panic regarding her whereabouts. Given my paucity of time, I didn't want to “remind” him of the truth and send him reeling into a state of dejection, only to leave him all alone to reinitiate his mourning process.
“We've got to go find her,” my grandfather declared. Stubbornly and with great effort, he began to wheel himself out of the room. I urged him to relax, asking that we discuss the situation first, but his determination was unshakable. Assuring him that the search would be fruitless, I agreed to wheel him about the floor to show him that she wasn't there, “although she's safe and sound elsewhere,” I promised him. He emitted more mumblings of concern while we explored the hallways of the care home. A mosaic of forlorn, vacant faces watched us roll by, and eventually we ended up back at his room.
I attempted to distract my grandfather with some of his favourite topics—ice cream, his time in the Air Force, Pigeon Lake, peanut butter, Yogi Berra quotes, the abomination of white vehicles. I guiltily felt like I was endeavouring to comfort a child in the absence of their parents (something that I'm equally ill-equipped to do), and none of it worked. He remained agitated, glum and dedicated to finding Myrna. When I was long overdue to leave for my engagement, I embraced him, encouraged him not to worry, and bid him farewell more hastily than I would have liked. Upon exiting, he muttered the heartrending words, “I guess if she loves me, she'll come back.”
Down the hall, I summoned the elevator and waited. The doors took a minor eternity to open, and by the time they did my grandfather had wheeled himself by my side. “Maybe she's downstairs… I gotta find her. Maybe she's downstairs.” Once on the main floor, I entrusted his care to an employee, hugged him goodbye again, and stepped out into the oppressive, mocking sunshine.
Climbing into a taxi, I gave the driver the address of the venue where I was to deliver a lecture on sherry to a roomful of Edmonton's wine professionals. Nothing could have seemed less consequential. It was a few weeks before my 41st birthday, and I felt as ancient as anybody that I saw in my grandfather's home. I wished I could go back to somehow help him with his doomed search, and wondered if we're all devoting ourselves to similarly futile pursuits each day—wasting our time with trivialities, pledging allegiance to vacuous ideologies, fumbling through tarnished memories, and looking for things that don't exist anymore.
I would never see my grandfather again. A few weeks later we received news from my aunt in Edmonton that his health had taken a sharp decline, and later that night he died. Despite my four decades-worth of wonderful memories, I found it hard not to dwell upon my last visit with this important man. But I quickly realised that my grandfather's search hadn't been futile at all. He might have been thrown off track for a few months looking for Myrna on the wrong plane of existence, but everything was to work out for him in the end. As it will for all of us.
