Round Seven I'm Late, Trading Places, & The Beach

Round Seven I’m Late, Trading Places, & The Beach

As it turned out, my father’s checkup regarding his chest pains escalated rather quickly. Not only did the doctor tell him that his heart was only running at 10% of its capability, but that he needed a quadruple bypass immediately, or he could drop dead at any moment.

I was in complete shock when I heard the news. I was still teaching tennis at that time and had just given my dad a lesson that morning. Sure, he was getting winded much faster than usual — I just attributed that to the unusually hot and humid summer morning we had chosen to work out in. That tough bastard. He could have easily dropped dead right there on the tennis court. In retrospect, that would have been the best way for my old man to go. He told me more than once that he’d like to die on the tennis court — passing away doing what he loved, missing the horrific events that followed over the next few years. A potential win/win for Victor Garcia.

I was glad they caught the problem when they did, though. Not only did I love him terribly — but my father was the rock of the family. More accurately, he was the rock of the three of us. Our tiny, triangular family of only three people. The only ones that counted. What would I have done being the only one to take care of my mother every day, while she was possessed by the disease and tortured by The Time Thief as she was?

I was about to get a good taste of what that would have been like. For the next two and a half weeks I would have to take my father’s place at their home — 24-hour caregiving for my mother, which included sleeping in the same bed with her at night instead of him. I had no time to prepare mentally. My pop was down. I had to step up like a backup quarterback for the most forgetful NFL team in history.

Those two and a half weeks became the most trying, taxing, and soul-testing stretch of time of my life. Especially at night. It just so happened that my mother was going through one of the most frustrating and annoying phases of her Alzheimer’s at the time.

The phase was this: she constantly thought she was late. What’s worse, she constantly thought she was late for something but never knew exactly what it was. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was late because either me or my father was making her late. Whichever one of us was in front of her would get the blame.

As aggravating as my mother’s mystery tardiness was, my pop and I usually tried to joke our way out of her imaginary angst. There’s a great lyric in old Mississippi blues songs that goes, “You see me laughin’. Laughin’ just to keep from cryin’.” That’s what my pop and I usually did. It was our best self-defense mechanism. Sometimes it even brightened my momma up as well.

One time, shortly before the surprise emergency bypass, we were all in the kitchen. My mom was starting up again with her antics of the time. “We were supposed to be out of here an hour ago, and now I’m late again.” My pop was doing the dishes with his back to us. She continued, “Are you guys just gonna stand around here all day? Or are we gonna go?” My mother started fidgeting like she was getting herself together to walk out the door, even though she was in her pajamas. She did have her fanny pack on over her pajamas, so she meant business.

Here’s a little Alzheimer’s caregiver tip — no extra charge.

If the victim says they did, are doing, or are going to do something, you go with it. Example: if I ask my mother what she did that day and she tells me she was in Spain for a bullfight and drank Sangria, then she was in fucking Spain for a bullfight and drank Sangria. The next question should be something like, “Oh! Sounds awesome. Was it fun?” What you do NOT say is, “No you didn’t, Mom! That’s impossible. There’s no way you were in Spain.” That makes the victim self-conscious, confused, embarrassed, and then afraid. They withdraw or sometimes lash out. You have to be intentionally self-aware and suppress your frustration and temptation to correct them. It really doesn’t matter where they say they went or what they say they did. It’s not about you. Nothing is about you anymore.

If you find yourself in that situation, please remember that.

But in the kitchen that day, that rule became too tough for me to follow. I was still learning. I couldn’t roll with this recurring, fictitious dilemma anymore.

“Mom!” I snapped. “Mom, where are we going? What are we late for? Tell me, Mom! Do you even know???”

Sande paused and stood up straight. She walked over next to my father by the sink. “Well, Eric. We were supposed to leave. We were supposed to go an hour ago…” She put her right hand out with her index finger pointing and her thumb up — kind of in the shape of a gun — put it to my father’s temple and pushed his head to the side pretty hard with the tip of her finger. Then she raised her voice. “….But FUCK-O here can’t seem to get his shit together so we can leave!!!”

There was a good, long pause.

My mom just stood there, waiting to do battle, while my pop slowly and easily regained his balance from having his head pushed to the left — as if by a bully after school. Then… uproarious and simultaneous laughter from both my father and me. My pop dropped the pot he was washing into the sink as we both doubled over. My mother stood there with her hand-gun still cocked and at the ready. She saw us and started laughing hysterically as well. Joining us in our undefinable, absurd family joke. Her glorious laugh was back. We all cracked up for a long, long time.

I could barely get the words out. “Did you just call my father ‘Fuck-o’???” We all howled even harder. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the word ‘Fuck-o’!!!”

Our little triangle got lucky that time. I came to cherish moments like that.

But now my father was gone — off for his emergency bypass — and it was my first night alone with my mother. It was weird. It was even weirder as we prepared for bed.

I think my mom knew something was different, but she didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t know exactly what it was. She never asked for my father, though. Not once while he was gone for his bypass surgery and recovery. That was good, because one of my biggest fears was constantly dodging that question over and over again. But it was also unsettling to the point that I sometimes wished she would ask about him — just to show she had some grasp of what was going on around her.

From the very first night, the “I’m late” business started with my mom. Not at bedtime, or just after the TV goes off, before we fall asleep. That would have been tolerable and easy. No — The Time Thief seldom approved of “easy.”

It was always around 3:30 or 4am. I’d feel the sharp nail of my mom’s index finger jabbing at my ribs. Waking up, this woman would be standing over me next to my side of the bed — fully dressed sometimes, all ready to head out to our undetermined location for our unknown appointment.

“Are you just gonna lay there like a bump on a log?” She’d stare down at me, bewildered by my laziness. “….Or are we gonna finally get going?”

It was the worst. Still dark out, but she had that goddamn antique cherub lamp on. “Maaaaaaaaaaaa! Please! Please go to sleep. It’s four in the morning, Ma!” That’s when she would usually start pacing around the bed and mumbling to herself — almost like she was rebooting the little reality she had created. It generally gave me just enough time to start drifting off again before my mom’s switchblade fingernail got me back on my feet for all my rest and dreams that night.

The doctor had prescribed incredibly low dose sleeping pills for occasions such as this. Regular strength sleeping pills would zonk my mother out and leave her beyond disoriented for days. We couldn’t have that. It had to be low dose. But it was something, at least.

So, on those nights when I would finally give up on my dreams of having dreams, I’d go into the bathroom with my mother and try to convince her to take one of these tiny pills of peace and temporary salvation. For both of us.

Whatever hurdles my father went through selling my mom that ’66 Mustang paled in comparison to the sales job I had to pull on that woman in her bathroom at 5am just to get her to take a tiny white pill.

I would try to keep it simple at first and spin it as “the doctor wanted you to take this at this time every day.” I’d put the pill in my mom’s good hand — her right hand. “What is it, Eric?” she must have asked about 30 times. I would always try to answer patiently, like it was the first time she’d asked.

“It’s vitamins, Ma. The doctor wanted you to take this. He said so.”

My mother may have had a disease-riddled brain with a heartless demon riding her to her grave, but she had a hard time buying my little pill story. “That doesn’t seem right, Eric.” She’d spit the pill back out onto her palm. “I just don’t know, Eric. I’m not comfortable with this.”

This would go back and forth pretty much every morning until the sun came up during that stretch.

Sleep-deprived and perpetually so close to a few hours of rest, my frustration became almost unbearable. I’d have visions of jamming the pill down my mother’s throat with some kind of imaginary giant plunger. I just needed to sleep so badly. Needless to say, I was a sleepless zombie caregiver for those weeks. I’d go about my routine of preparing meals, finding distractions, and watching TV shows she liked at certain times of day. A safe bet was just playing fucking Oprah on VHS, ad nauseam.

No family really came over to relieve me. Not by then. They had pretty much stopped with their “visits” a while back. It was uncomfortable to see my mother like that, and they all gradually disappeared. Marisol, a woman who cleaned the house and had befriended my mother, came to help when she could. My mom’s best friend Barbara, also came from time to time. I’m still grateful to both of them for that.

One day during that stretch I had about had it. I felt like I was going to break down, and then I would be no good to anyone — especially not my mother. I felt like I was drowning. The whole weight of the world was on my shoulders with my dad gone and recovering from his surgery. Nobody else was available that day. I even tried some family members again, but the ones who did answer my calls all had an excuse.

My pop’s supposed best friend was Henry, but my dad called him “Fofo.” Fofo proved about as useless as the others over time, but he and my dad’s other friend Raul came to visit my pop in short spurts at the hospital after the bypass. I called Fofo. He was hanging out with Raul, as usual. They all had history with my pop — car salesmen together for years back in the day.

I asked Fofo if he could come by because I was having a hard time and needed to leave. I didn’t tell him, but I just wanted to go to the beach. I needed to go to the beach. Just to decompress. I needed a fucking minute of peace.

Fofo said they could come by, but only for an hour. Of course. I agreed. They took their time, but they came over.

One the two old salesmen finally arrived; I told them I’d be back in an hour. The beach I was going to was about 45 minutes away — Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne. It was quiet, beautiful, by a lighthouse, and there wouldn’t be a lot of idiots stepping over each other and playing horrible music near the water with their stupid families and friends.

I parked. Walked down the wooden path with ropes on either side, surrounded by tall sea grass, and sat right down on the white sand. No beach blanket or anything. I just sat there, elbows on my knees and head in my hands, staring at the Atlantic. I’m not sure how long I sat in that spot. I didn’t even go in the warm, blue water. I had no desire to. They say the sea has no memory. I thought about that a lot — whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. No memory. It reminded me of my mother. I thought about everything, and I thought about nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing.

My phone was on vibrate and buzzing over and over again. Fofo was calling, obviously upset that I’d gone over our agreed time. What was he going to do though? Leave my mother by herself? I knew he wouldn’t dare.

I finally got up, put my game face back on, and walked to the car. I called Fofo. He immediately started complaining about the time. “I’m on my way back,” I said, coldly. He kept going about having somewhere to be, and I just repeated “I’m on my way back” a little louder. Then I hung up on Fofo and drove back to the house.

When I got there, Fofo and Raul were pissed. I barely acknowledged them as they gathered their things and got out of there quickly. Both men skipped the pleasantries with me. My mother was in her bedroom, as usual. I’ve known Fofo my whole life. He actually saved my life when I fell in the pool as an infant, and no one else was around. But I wasn’t a kid anymore. That was a long time ago. All Fofo was to me then was a bad friend to my father and, therefore, useless to my family. They never once asked, “Are you okay?” or even pretended by saying, “If you need anything, let us know.” I had no more time for them.

Fofo and Raul never came by to help after that day. I didn’t care. We didn’t need them. I wasn’t going to beg for help from anyone again. Like my pop told me years before, “It’s just us now, Eric.”

I still live in Miami. It’s been about 20 years since that day, and I haven’t been to the beach since.

The Time Thief took that away from me too.

Eric Garcia, the author of this article, goes by “Uncle Scotchy,” who is also well known as a musician and performer. Eric was a caregiver for his mother during her battle with Early Onset Alzheimer’s (diagnosed at 59 and passed at age 67), and then he was a caregiver for his father for the following 10 years, though he did not suffer from any form of dementia; his body deteriorated in several ways.

Eric is a professional musician who specializes in The Blues. He wrote and performed in “The Blues Opera”, an immersive, one-man show chronicling his journey as a son, a caregiver, a musician, and a human being.