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Book Excerpt: The Long Goodbye
Nov. 16, 2004-- -- In a new book Patti Davis, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan, recalls her father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. The following is an excerpt from "The Long Goodbye".
When I got married in 1984, my father gave a toast at my wedding. I don't remember his exact words, but they had to do with his recollection of how tiny my hand once was, as a child holding on to his, and how so many years later, he was giving my hand in marriage. An older hand, a woman's hand.
These days, I find myself looking at my father's hands. They seem to have grown smaller, a bit more frail. It's as if they no longer need to grasp life, stretch themselves around it; rather, they are learning to let it go. It's a soft release, not like the Dylan Thomas poem I once embraced: "Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day."
I still like that poem; I like its fury and its fierce passion. But I think my father's way is sweeter.
I watch his eyes these days, too. They shimmer across some unfathomable distance, content to watch from wherever his mind has alighted. If I turn into his eyes, it's like turning into a calm breeze. The serenity is contagious.
The tendency when you're around someone with Alzheimer's is to try to reel them back in, include them in the conversation, pique their interest in whatever you happen to be discussing. But I stopped doing that because it seemed to me that I was intruding. Wherever he was, he was content. Wherever he was, he shouldn't be disturbed.
At the ranch we owned when I was younger, my father taught me that when a horse was growing older, when riding it would be unkind and possibly harmful, the horse should be allowed a more peaceful life, roaming in the acres of pasture that our ranch provided. I remember several of our horses living out the remainder of their days in wide, green fields, grazing. That's how I think of my father now; it's what I see in his eyes. Things are calmer where he is -- most of the time, anyway. And he grazes -- on the moments and hours that are left to him. On the sight of afternoon sun gilding the lawn or clouds skimming across the sky. On his family, who have finally learned how to laugh together, and how to love. He grazes on the taste of life as it slips away -- the rich, fertile moments that must be released into the wind, because that's what you do if you're like my father, his hand reaching for God's, leaving ours behind, saying goodbye in small ways, getting us used to his absence.
I haven't read any of the books on Alzheimer's. I probably should, but I don't want my thoughts to be cluttered with other people's impressions, or with medical predictions and evaluations. I want to keep watching my father's hands. I want to remember how they've changed, how uncallused and tender they've become. And I want to chart his distance from his eyes. They're a map, but you have to look closely. Sometimes, I think I actually see him leaving, retreating, navigating his way out of this world and into the next. Other times, I see him right there, as if he's preserving each moment under glass.
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