The meaning of Mercy
The Meaning of Mercy
The woman had driven through the night. She thought of stopping at a hotel on the two day long drive but knew that if she did, he would be awake all night and that meant she would be too. So she stopped at rest areas now and then and napped in the car. She had given her father clear instructions not to leave the car without telling her. But she knew he wouldn't remember. Still, she felt confident that she would awaken should he leave the car.
When he had still been at home, she had awoken everytime he came creeping down the stairs, wandering through the house and garage. When it had gotten to the point where she was having to stay awake 24 hours a day, the woman had known she couldn't go on like that for long. She went so many hours without sleeping that she was afraid she would have a stroke. She had to take care of her child. He was 14, not an adult. Her father, on the other hand, was more like a child in many ways than her son was.
Her father had Lewy Body Dementia, the same disease that Robin Williams had. She had met Alzheimer's patients before. She had helped care for her grandmother from time to time when she had been a very young adult. Seeing her grandmother's slow gradual decline had been hard. Yet it hadn't compared to her father's decline. His decline had happened so rapidly that she didn't recognize it at first for what it was.
By the time she was able to get him into a nursing home, he had accidentally set fires. The woman felt she had no choice. It was no longer safe to keep him at home. The burden of guilt that weighed on her for making the decision wasn't easy. His worst symptom, to her at least, was seeing him frightened so often. He was far past the point of rationale. When the sun went down, he always became agitated and afraid. She had had to prevent him from calling 911 when he thought President Trump was coming to kill them all to take their house. She tried to rationalize why that was impossible but he was unable to reject his delusions. He had been afraid to vote because he had been afraid Trump would find out that he didn't vote for him. Trump and his minions would do something terrible to them.
She had to stay up all night with him and reassure him every few minutes that this was their home and they were safe. She was exhausted. She began to worry that it was dangerous for her to drive her son to school and collect him later in the day. She slept 45 minutes every three days or so. The night that he had put a dishtowel in the microwave and cooked it for 16 minutes, the house filled with smoke and flames of fire shot out of the microwave. And she had been asleep. It had frightened them all, but none more so than her son.
She dreaded visiting her father at the nursing home. It was an hour's drive to the place, and another hour's drive home. On the hour's drive home, she often cried much of the way. In the nursing home, her father couldn't get along with his roommate. He was sure the man was stealing from him though he had nothing to steal.
They moved him to a new room, this time with 3 other people. She felt sad that she lived in a world where only the wealthy could truly take care of their loved ones. The nursing home took his social security income as payment for his room and board. When she visited him, she tried to get him out of his bed, up and moving. He looked younger than the other patients. But their minds were stronger than his. She took him to the room where there was an upright Yamaha piano that had a nice sound to it. She tried to get him to play. He was a great pianist. He had written an opera once. But he had also once been the smartest man she had ever known once.
He refused to try to play. He was embarrassed to play in case someone heard him and he didn't play well. When he gave up trying to play piano, she knew he was truly lost. Every time she went to see him, she tried to talk to him as if he was the man she had grown up with and had known so well. Sometimes she thought she had gotten through to him, but she was wrong. He wasn't the man she had grown up with.
The woman went to visit her father at least once a week but he thought she hadn't been to see him in months. There was nothing she could do about that except try to get him to keep his phone charged. She was surprised when he never tried to call her. The first time he had been in a geriatric psych ward, he had called her every day, sometimes, several times per day. That first time had given her hope. A change of medicine had made a difference and he seemed more reasonable and calm. His hallucinations, if he was having them still, had calmed. For a few months at least.
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When she made her plan, the woman had done her research. Her goal was to get as close to the White House without attracting the notice of the Secret Service as she could. She had found a small outside theater/greenway that would be putting on a production of Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap." She had found it by perusing local news websites and had struck gold when a local news outlet promised its readers that they would show highlights of the play. That meant that a news media outlet would be present.
When they arrived, it was early afternoon. A beautiful spring day. The kind of day she would have loved one time. But just as her father had changed, so had she. She felt no emotions though she felt a heaviness in her chest.
She rolled down the windows to feel the clean breeze, as if somehow it would sanitize them in preparation for what she was about to do.
"Where is Benjamin?" He looked worriedly at her.
"Don't worry, dad. He's fine. He's at home with Adora." She put her hand on his.
"Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to take care of us, dad. Let's just sit here for a moment and feel the cool breeze and sun shine."
"I knew you would come and get me. I always knew you wouldn't leave me in that place."
Before he could start telling her about whichever hallucination was most on his mind, she interrupted him.
"Of course. I couldn't leave you there. But I will take care of us. We are going to go out together; with love."
She realized when she said it, that she actually meant it. Originally, her plan had been hatched with the thought of trying to wake people up to the madness of the civilization they were complacently living in. Why weren't people revolting or at least protesting?
Now those questions meant less to her than they had at one time. There had been a time when she had thought it might make a difference. But after everything their president had taken from them; safety measures, jobs, feeling free to be who they were, she doubted if anything would move the American public. She had had to try but now it no longer mattered to her. The government had taken away the only income they had; social security. She had been unable to pay the nursing home and he had been discharged to her care.
At first, she had tried to find a way to make things work. But she couldn't even buy groceries. When they were gone, Adora and Benjamin would receive whatever was left of her IRA. She had urged Adora to take it as soon as possible before the government could take that too. Adora had promised her she would take care of their son. The three of them had talked about it for several days. Adora had cried. Benjamin had hugged her and told her he was proud of her for doing something. But she knew he would never truly recover. Her father hadn't understood at all. He thought they should be in Pennsylvania and she smiled and reassured him that she would keep him safe.
When her father had fallen into a gentle sleep in the car, she went to the trunk and got out a stack of posterboard, a tripod, and a digital video camera. Once she had set up the camera, she returned to the trunk for the container of petrol. She then checked the posterboards to make sure they were in the right order.
The woman went back and sat in the car, looked at her father and thought how unfair it all was. He had fought for this country, ostensibly from communism, but it hadn't mattered. They should have been fighting against fascism but nobody knew that back then. His peers had protested the war. He came home after over four years of flying 24 hour missions listening into the Viet Cong radio and then translating. He had worked all his life after the air force, done all the thins Americans had been taught were important and it had ended up meaning nothing. She was sure Agent Orange was responsible for his early dementia. It was known to cause a myriad of terrible diseases including the one he had. And the government had never banned the chemical pesticide because it was just too profitable and as she had finally accepted, profit was all that mattered to the people who enjoyed having more money than they could spend in 25 lifetimes.
She had thought those thoughts and felt anger at one time. Now she was too tired to feel anything much. She was resolute that she wouldn't let him die of hunger, frightened and alone. And neither would she.
When her father woke up he looked around, saw her, and smiled happily. "I knew you would come and get me."
"That's right, dad. I would never let you go through this alone. We are together. We control our destiny. Let's get out now."
She wanted to test the camera, to make sure they stood in a position that the camera would be able to catch everything.
"Where's Benjamin?" She explained again that he was at home and he was safe. Sometimes he thought that her child was his too.
She helped him put on a flannel shirt so he wouldn't be cold. Then she stood him where she wanted him, right next to her. She started the camera rolling remotely. She stood very close to her father whose affable expression looked into the camera.
She picked up the posterboard. She flipped the first one over and showed it to the camera. It read, in clear capitalized letters, "Trump took our social security income. Because people like Elon Musk need it more."
The second poster read, "We haven't eaten in 5 days."
She put her arm around her father, hugging him to her briefly. He patted her arm.
The third poster read, "We can't live without food."
The fourth poster read, "Our president issued a death sentence to us and millions of other elderly Americans."
She showed the final poster. Not once did it cross her mind that she didn't have to go through with this. The poster read, "Now it's time to die."
The woman lay the posters at her feet and picked up the can of petrol. As she poured it carefully over the two of them, her father sputtered a little and said, "Can we eat now?"
She hugged him to her tightly, both her arms around him and whispered, "Yes," just as the click of the Bic lighter was heard. It was followed by a woosh of hot air. The woman felt no pain though tears streamed down her face the entire time, as they often did these days. She continued to say the words, "I love you dad" repeatedly until they were both gone.
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