He sits alone in his room.
He has no idea why he is there. He says he is being punished and was put in this place for being bad.
Less than two years ago, he was outside his home from early morning till dark. He worked at a lumber supply company and made wooden toys for the kids down in his basement. He gave the little kids in the neighborhood candy. They called him Poppa Ray. When his hands shook too much and he could not remember what he was working on, he relegated himself to walking around his property pulling weeds.
He is 94 but just two years ago climbed the deck railing onto his roof to repair roof tiles. Last November, the family sold his house and Ray and my mother-in-law moved into our home. This past December, he shoveled our driveway and walk. He told the guy who we are contracted with for such matters to go away.
He is my step father-in-law. Some days he calls me his nephew and other days I am his uncle. On good days I am Art.
Awhile back, a fellow resident; a former priest prone to vile outbursts started screaming for no apparent reason and at no one in particular. Ray became convinced that the man was yelling at him and now refuses to eat his meals in the dining room. He now eats alone further isolating him from the world.
Exacerbating dementia; he suffers from 80% hearing loss, only hearing you when you yell a few inches from his face.
I spend my time visiting and listening to the same five or six stories repeatedly. He thinks I work in the facility and thinks he is right down the road from where he lived his whole life. Before we got him into this facility, he spent two months at a rehab/nursing home where he was severely traumatized by the facility, some staff, and several residents. He confuses that facility with the facility he is in now.
At the other facility he was convinced that they were taking residents down to the basement, killing them and then grinding up their bodies. He keeps telling me thar his wife lives in the basement of the facility in which he now lives, and I must get her out of the basement before they kill her.
There is no reasoning with a person in the throes of dementia, at least that is the case with Ray. I just sit there, listen to him, bring him cookies, pens or whatever he tells me he wants. He is insistent that the staff is stealing from him. I am told this is very common with dementia patients.
Despite everything the nurses and orderlies tell me he is one of their favorite residents on the floor. Mercifully, he has retained some of his sense of humor. His demeanor for the most part is kind and gentle. As a Korean war veteran, he makes his bed every morning and it is perfect. He spends hours cleaning his bathroom endearing himself to the maintenance staff.
His room looks out into the parking lot, and he tells me he looks every day for my car. He is on a path that I would wish on nobody. I just try and make his journey a bit easier.
