No Saints around Here: A Caregiver’s Days

An Unexpected Corner of My Net

164 AN UNEXPECTED CORNER OF MY NET March 10 This is a story about a car that didn’t blow up. But it is also a postscript about my net, the web of support all caregivers need. Yesterday I discovered an unexpected corner of my own net in a suburban high school parking lot. I am not a natural optimist. After my father died when I was seven, I learned how mortal disasters strike without warning. I worry a lot. At any sign of difficulty, I can easily think of all possible catastrophic possibilities. In my late twenties, when I consulted a counselor about my failing first marriage, he once sighed and said, “Susan, instead of just getting on your train, you are always too busy adding a long line of what-if boxcars.” Over the years, however, I’ve seen that my truth is a little more complicated. I’m not just adding what-ifs. I am often standing on the curb, looking both ways, watching for the train (or bus or runaway car) to appear out of nowhere and knock me down. What I’ve learned is, of course, that when the blow does finally fall, it never comes from the direction I’m watching. It sneaks up from behind. Consider James’s long battle with Parkinson’s and dementia. Although James was fifteen years older than I, when we married an unexpected corner of my net 165 he was always so energetic and vigorous—in fact, I often wore out before he did—that I never imagined he would succumb to a long, lingering, debilitating disease. Instead, despite the fact that he had been in excellent health foryears and exercised daily, I worried he would have a heart attack or a devastating stroke and die instantly. I worried when he was late coming home in case he had been in an accident. I panicked when he mentioned a pain in his chest (a cracked rib) or dizziness (an inner-ear infection) or stomach trouble (diverticulitis). I always imagined he would die one day at a very old age, seated at his architect’s desk, his pencil in his hand as he was making one final, spirited sketch. James didn’t worry like me. We were a salutary balance, since he was sure everything was going to turn out all right, and I was almost equally sure it probably wouldn’t. When we traveled together , I would say, “Now we’re two hours behind schedule! Our plane will never make the connection!” James would say calmly, “We’ll probably make up time. And besides, we can run to the next gate.” Meanwhile I would begin to plan ahead, just in case. Sometimes he was right. We made the next flight. Sometimes I was right. We missed it, but I usually had an idea already in place. Once, landing in a small airport in Scotland, we discovered that friends we were going to meet there had missed their own plane from London. I had suspected that might possibly happen. (Naturally. Even though they were always punctual.) So I could say, “Okay, hon, I’ve already looked on the map and discovered a park just a few miles from here. Let’s eat a sandwich in the airport café, rent a car, and spend the afternoon walking around the park and its gardens until the Coopers arrive.” So we did. In the last few years, I have understood that my relentless planning is part of what makes my net hold together. I have stopped thinking of it as a character flaw. But yesterday I had no plan, no idea. I had to fall back on the unknown. My net. Early in the morning I left our house for the two-hour drive to our Wisconsin retreat. I’ve managed to do this several times in an unexpected corner of my net 166 the last year, and I believe these brief breaks have helped keep me from plunging over the cliff. I hoped to arrive by noon and have almost forty-eight hours of quiet (interrupted only by phone calls and checks on James, who will always have an aide nearby). Although our car is ten years old, Tony, our mechanic, keeps it tuned, fit, and running. I was not expecting trouble. For the first time in five months, my planned break did not coincide with a forecast of...