With you always

I thought the old couple in the back seat were eating their roastbeef and slurping their milkshakes, mindless of the discussion between Asherel and me.
"Where did the music go?" I asked her.
"My battery died. Why don't you have a CD player in this car anyway? And a better radio?"
"I don't know," I sighed, "We are in it all the time. It would be nice to have one. Maybe you should mention this to Dad. After all, Mother's Day is coming up...."

Evelyn burst our laughing in the back seat.
"Oh, you heard me conniving for a Mother's Day gift, did you Evelyn?" I said, glancing in the mirror.
"Yes," she chuckled.
"Did you ever plot ways to get a Mother's Day gift?"
"Oh yes!" she said.
"Hey Comer, did you always get her the gift she hinted after?"
"Hinted or told me, she got everything she wanted. She and my daughter both. Whatever they wanted they got."
"Did they appreciate it?"
"Probably not," he said, squeezing Evelyn's hand.
"You're a good man, Comer," I said.
"He is a good man," agreed Evelyn.
"Well I'm just glad I had the money," continued Comer, "The day I got out of the army, I had a $100 bucks."
"But that was a lot of money back then, right?"
"Yea, but I blew it all before the next morning."
"On what!?"
"Oh you know, wine, women, and song."
"Did you know Evelyn yet?"
"Oh no, I didn't meet her for another 3 years."
"Good thing, Evelyn, you might not have liked him then."
"You're right about that. I think I did about the fastest turn-around of anyone in history. I walked out of there without a penny in my pocket to my brother's house, got a job, and worked my way up."
He started the first office of a small brokerage/insurance firm in the city and after expanding 3 times, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire.


I had collected my old friends from their new Senior Care facility. The memories of the old place, being apart in separate buildings, poor Evelyn crying every time he sadly walked away to return to his place were already receding. They were sitting together on the lovely lobby couch, holding hands, both dressed elegantly. When Evelyn saw me, I could tell by the bright smile and joyful reaching out to me that she knew me. It almost seemed like in this new place, Alzheimer was retreating.
She stood up quickly, none of the shuffling painfulness of a week ago evident, and walked quickly to the car.
"You're leaving me in the dust, Mother!" called Comer.
We had driven to Lake Wylie, with a stop first at Arbys for the roast beef they'd been longing for.
On the way, Comer told me he had been needing a switch for his lamp, and a small hammer. I stopped at Lowes Building Supplies, leaving Evelyn in the car with Asherel.

"You stay here with Asherel," I urged her, "Will that be ok?"
"Oh yes," she said, smiling at Asherel.

As we drove home after meandering along the lake shore, Evelyn said, "This is such an interesting city, all these parts."
I knew enough about Alzheimers and Evelyn's echo-ing of words to know that word retrieval was sometimes impossible. She may know at times what she wants to say, but often the crumbles in her brain won't let her travel to the place where words come easily. This alert and spontaneous sentence was a little victory.

When I returned our old friends to the home, there were none of those torturous bouts of weeping that broke both my and Comer's heart. Evelyn and Comer went to his room, where they would spend the day together.
"I'm so happy to have this little hammer!" said Comer, holding up the Lowes bag.
"You watch him, Evelyn," I said, ""Don't let him knock the wall over."
"I won't," she said, laughing.

I took her hands and said, "We can go wherever you want next week, do anything you like, see anything you would like to see. What would you like to see?"
Without pause she said, "Asherel!"
"Ok," I said hugging her and Comer, "Then I will bring Asherel."

Later when I told Asherel what Evelyn had said, she mused, "But I didn't do anything. I just sat here."
That sometimes is all it takes. Just being there alongside a fellow traveler. As I left Comer and Evelyn together in his new room, hers just down the hall, I knew that was something this sweet old couple knew deeply in their souls.

Psalm 73:23

 ²³ Yet I am always with you;
   you hold me by my right hand.