Leaving part of my heart so far away

Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

I’m in Florida visiting my uncle LeRoy. He’s sleeping as I write this, although it’s nearly 10 a.m. and he is always up and about by 7. But it’s dark as night in his house. And quiet. The air conditioner makes some noise but not much. He has it set to 80 degrees.

There’s no reason for my uncle to be up early. That’s what I think. It’s a Sunday morning so there’s nowhere he has to be. And then I think there’s nowhere he has to be every morning.

He will be 96 in a few weeks. People don’t break down the doors of 96-year-olds to ask them for a favor or to invite them to a party. His dance card has been empty for a long time. The only cards he carries these days are the ones receptionists hand him to remind him of his next doctor’s appointment.

Last night we were playing cribbage and he said, “Janice and I played cribbage every night for 30 years. Every night after dinner. Imagine?” I didn’t have to imagine. In his dining room, there’s a photo of him standing with his wife Janice, between them a pretty young girl I don’t know. In this photo, my uncle is movie-star handsome. He was a Teamster. He drove trucks. He didn’t wear crisp white shirts with jackets and ties. But he did this day. And the camera caught him.

He told me later that this photo was taken at a wedding “a long time ago.” He looked wistful, but just for an instant. He doesn’t dwell on the past. Still, sometimes the past pounces.

He’s thinner than he was when I saw him in April. And he’s weaker. He walks from his bedroom to the living room, eight steps, and this wears him out. He used to bound up the steps of an 18-wheeler, the grab handle mere decoration. Now, even with a walker to support him, he struggles.

He ate his breakfast, cornflakes and half a banana. “I don’t have much of an appetite,” he told me.

He watches the news and sleeps through most of it. His cat Ike, named after General Eisenhower, sleeps along with him, curled on his lap. Ike was his wife’s cat. She loved cats. There are porcelain cats and ceramic cats and stuffed animal cats and cat mugs and even a crossed-stitched cat portrait in the house. He hasn’t moved a single one since she died 2½ years ago.

They lived in Billerica until he retired. They moved to Florida to ride bikes and walk the beach and enjoy the outdoors 12 months a year. They found a “Leave It to Beaver” house on a “Leave It to Beaver” street and he plastered over the wood paneling and she hung wallpaper, then made curtains and drapes for every room. And 60 became 70, and 70 became 80, and he was still going strong, keeping up with his 14-year-younger bride.

Then one day, after a bike ride, they came home and he realized that though his wife was talking, he couldn’t hear her. He thought something had lodged in his ear. But it wasn’t that simple. He’d had a stroke that left him deaf in one ear and half deaf in the other.

After this, Janice began to run interference for him. “What’d he say?” LeRoy would ask wherever they went. And Janice would translate. When I phoned, she would listen to my words, then shout them out to him. He didn’t seem to mind.

One time when I came to visit, they played interactive simulated golf on their TV. They were competitive and playful. They laughed a lot. They were happy.

And then Janice’s sister was murdered in her home near the university where she taught. Janice and her sister were close. They talked every day. One day Janice called and there was no answer. The next day she called and again and there was no answer. On day three, she called a neighbor. How many times, I wonder, did she want to go back to day two, when she didn’t know?

He never thought he would outlive her. And he shouldn’t have. Janice died because grief hijacked her brilliant, analytical, lucid mind.

His mind is as clear as his 96-year-old legs are weak. He skunks me at cribbage. He never forgets the right jack or which direction to peg, and he always remembers whose crib it is.

But deafness is isolating. He’s been tested. He has hearing aids. His deafness is unfixable. We went to Miracle-Ear, hoping. But there was no miracle there for him.

He doesn’t complain about this. He doesn’t complain about anything. He has a machine that converts phone conversation to text and even though it doesn’t work 50 percent of the time, he’s grateful when it does. He’s grateful for Trish, the woman who makes his living alone possible, who cooks for him, cleans for him, takes him to his appointments, and calls him even on Sunday. He’s grateful for Wendy’s cheeseburgers, which he gets every Tuesday when he and Trish go food shopping, and for Pat down the street, who stops by once in a while.

He loves cut flowers. He has Trish buy them on Tuesdays when they go shopping.

The smallest things are the biggest things now.

On Tuesday morning when I left him to fly home, I kissed him goodbye. It was early and I had to wake him. In the Uber all the way to the airport, I kept thinking that I had left something behind.

I realize with every mile that distances us that what I’ve left behind is him.