In sickness and in health
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By CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star
It's Saturday night and Ken Olsen has a date with his best girl. He's bringing her a chocolate malt. Eleanor loves malts.
Ken's daughter, Marci Alberti, fixes it for him, while he shows off his "pad" in the basement of her south Lincoln home.
He has his own kitchen and a nice living room and a spacious bedroom with a walk-in closet. It's bigger than the house on X Street, where he and Eleanor raised Marci and her two sisters, Ken says.
He came here last spring after he put Eleanor in Homestead Manor. It broke his heart. He promised Eleanor he'd never do that. For 12 years he'd taken care of her at home, but when she quit walking on her own and he got sick, his kids convinced him it was time.
Ken puts on his dark jacket and a tweed cap. He carries the malt to the car. Marci drives.
It's raining.
The backseat is littered with stuffed animals and Happy Meal toys. Gabby was with her Grandma Marci Friday, but the 5-year-old spent most of the day with Ken.
That's one of the hardest things, Ken says. That Eleanor never knew her great-grandchildren.
And they don't know her, the way she was before.
For Valentine's Day he'll bring her flowers. Eleanor always loved roses. And if this rain quits maybe he'll take her for a drive.
"You could go get a malt," Marci says. "Go through the drive-thru at McDonald's."
Ken nods, holding the silver malt glass, keeping the ice cream cold and thick on the drive.
n n n
The Lawrence Welk Show is just getting over when Ken and Marci arrive at the community gathering room at Homestead.
"Do you want to go get her?" Ken asks.
Marci disappears down the hall. Ken sits on the striped sofa.
They'll have their date here. There's more room and a big-screen television. On Saturdays he likes to be in time for Lawrence Welk.
He and Eleanor loved to dance. They'd save their money when they were young to go swing to Benny Goodman or The Dorsey's at the Turnpike on Saltillo Road.
Boy, Eleanor could dance. They both could.
She's coming now, wearing blue, her gray hair brushed back, her cheeks sunk in without her dentures.
She stares at Ken.
"Hello. How are you?
"Are you happy to see me?"
She studies his face. Then she looks away, distracted by the visitors.
Watch, Ken says.
He puts his arms out and pulls her up from the chair. She stands. His wife of 63 years. Her arms reach around his neck and she hugs him tight.
Eleanor is here. But she is gone.
She's in the last stages of Alzheimer's, Ken says.
In the beginning, 13 years ago, she'd ask the same questions, over and over.
"Where are we going?"
"Who is coming over?"
"Listen here," Ken would say. "I already told you that."
She got lost going across the bike path to Apple Street. When Marci and her sisters took her shopping they'd have to keep a close eye or she'd wander off.
Ken took her to the doctor. The doctor told him not to tell Eleanor the diagnosis. It would just scare her, he said.
She never knew. But Alzheimer's took her anyway, little by little.
Ken fixed her meals. He drove her to Madonna adult day care. She liked it there. He'd bring her home. Get her ready for bed. Bathe her. Change her diaper.
She was easy to take care of, her husband says.
Ken holds the malt toward his wife.
Eleanor takes a long drink through the striped straw.
Then another.
"Is that good?"
Ken comes to see Eleanor every night. He always brings a malt. Sometimes chocolate. Sometimes strawberry. Eleanor can't chew anymore. That's part of the illness.
Eleanor reaches out to touch Ken's ear, his neck, his bald head.
Pat. Pat. Pat.
"Those are her love taps," Marci says.
She rubs her hands together like she's trying to keep them warm or wash off the dirt.
She opens her mouth, sounds come out.
Ken listens.
"Sometimes I wonder if she knows more than we think she does," he says.
But mostly the words are just sounds, a chorus of nonsense.
She has just one real word left.
Ken.
n n n
After the malt is gone, Ken and Marci pull Eleanor up from her chair. She wears sensible black shoes. At home Ken has his favorite picture. Eleanor wearing a checked dress and high-heeled sandals.
So young and pretty.
They walk together down the hallway and back, past the dark windows with the purple and pink hearts. Eleanor's black shoes shuffle.
Marci goes to find her mother's nightly snack at the nurse's station, a Styrofoam dish of pudding.
She feeds Eleanor. Then Ken finishes the job.
"She doesn't know how to feed you like I do, does she?"
The staffers always tell him Eleanor eats better when he holds the spoon.
Nate Dyer takes care of Eleanor during the evening shift. He watches Ken coming, all winter, even on the snowiest nights.
"That's what I call true love," he says.
Ken holds the spoon, half full of pudding. Eleanor opens her mouth.
He was a student at the university when they met. She was a waitress at a diner across from Gold's department store.
He noticed her right away. But it took him two weeks to get the nerve to ask her out.
"You ate a lot of lunches, didn't you?" Marci says.
After they got married Ken went to work for the post office. When the girls were raised Eleanor sold bras and panties at Gold's and Brandeis and Younkers.
They had a good marriage. They were sweethearts, Marci says. And best friends.
When the girls were young Eleanor would make cookies for their older neighbors.
Come on, she'd tell her daughters, let's go.
"Do we have to?"
"One day you'll be old," she told them. "And you'll wish someone would come visit you."
n n n
When Ken had to bring Eleanor here the doctor gave him some pills to take for the depression.
He feels better now. When they brought her home at Christmas he could see he'd made the right choice because Eleanor was too much for him to handle alone.
When he leaves tonight Eleanor won't remember he was here, Ken says.
He's learned a lot about the disease since joining the local Alzheimer's Association. He used to go to the support groups and cry.
Now he helps the others.
He comes here, he says, more for himself than for Eleanor.
"I made her a promise when we got married."
He repeats the vow. In sickness and in health.
"She would have done the same thing for me."
He has one prayer. That he lives longer than Eleanor so he can care for her until the end.
It's time to go.
"Can I have a kiss?"
Ken leans over the wheelchair.
His best girl, dressed in blue, stares up at him.
She lifts her face to meet his.
They kiss.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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