Garfield awaits for us on the other side of the gate at the top of the stairs. He was there when I first got up to start the coffee; he’s there now that I am bringing Cindy downstairs to start the day. When I am alone he remains at the gate, leaning persistently against it, refusing to budge once I open the gate until he gets his first rubs of the morning. He is expecting to be petted now as well, but he has learned that when I have Cindy in tow he needs to go to the landing halfway down the stairs and wait for us there.
Cindy puts her right hand on the railing while I hold her left one. We now descend the stairs in stages. First she goes down two steps, providing enough room for me to reach behind her and close the gate, thus keeping the cat fur away from the second floor. She goes down a few more steps until she is just above the landing.
Here I take a few moments to satisfy Garfield. He has been staring at us all the while with his Puss n Boots eyes. Now that I am on the landing he sits up on on his hind legs, arms raised up begging to be petted. Once I make the move to pet him he flops on his back, up against the far wall of the landing, exposing his belly for me to rub. He licks me profusely as I rub. I comment to Cindy that our cat is really a dog. She laughs, just as she has in the past when I say this, just as she will in the future.
Garfield’s position provides the space for Cindy to go down the last two stairs onto the landing without being too spooked and I grab her hand to help her down. However, I’ve stopped petting Garfield in order to do this and the persistent cat gets on his feet and stands directly in front of Cindy’s legs, blocking her descent down the second flight of stairs. I nudge him to the far wall and rub his exposed belly again, then grab Cindy’s hand and say: “Quick! Let’s go down while he is distracted.
Once again I am two steps ahead of her, holding onto her right hand while her left holds the railing. Each step is in slow motion. Mentally and physically she is able to go upstairs without assistance. She might in theory be physically able to go downstairs, but not in practice without assistance. With two steps left to go she halts as Garfield scurries past her, going to the kitchen where he expects his next “petting station” to be. I cannot get her going again even with holding her hand.
I have learned that when things grind to a halt I should just leave for a spell, allow the situation to reboot. I tell Cindy I’m going to place my iPad down on the kitchen table. When I return she looks at me apologetically and says, like a cartoon panel from The Family Circus: “It’s not me.”
This is not the same as a despairing look, which I suppose would follow if, in her mind, she was thinking: “It’s me.” Instead, the mind/body disconnect symptomatic of Alzheimer’s has reached a zenith. It’s a different body, a different person, that is not doing what her mind wants. Nevertheless, the “reboot” has worked, I hold her hand as she cautiously descends the last two steps. The rest of the morning proceeds without incident.
I recall a time not so long ago when Cindy declared “It’s not me” in response to spilling her coffee. That’s never an issue anymore because I always hold the coffee cup for her now, for if she were to hold it for more than a few seconds her focus would wane and the cup would tip. I anticipate a time in the not so far off future when she will no longer declare “It’s not me” on the stairs because I will have taken over that function for her completely as well. At that point there simply will not be many functions left for me to take over and I will look back ruefully at the times when Cindy looked endearingly apologetic at me and said: “It’s not me.”
