Father Time

an excerpt

When Grandpapa’s Alzheimer’s had swollen beyond simple forgetfulness and wanderings and had turned into the kind of condition that required professional care, I went with my Dad, his sister, his mother, and my brother to visit him.

I was uneasy from the moment we walked in. It had been years since I had been in anything resembling a hospital. When I smelled the air, how sterile and tight it was, I thought that if this was the sort of place constructed to ferry souls from life to death, and if I was in it, I would want to be delivered as soon as practicable. There was nothing in the place that felt comfortable. Not a staticky radio playing old songs in haunting tones and all of the televisions were tucked into the room so as to hold in all the sound they produced. Some of the rooms were empty and those that weren’t had patients dressed only in white, propped up in bed, alone.