Author’s Note: I retired from teaching in 2009 to take care of my mother after my father’s death. She was in the advanced stages of dementia but still lived for another five years with Jackie and me. I’ve written a number of stories based on my childhood and teaching career, but this story grew out of the time spent as my mother’s caregiver. I’ve learned that humor is the best way to navigate life, even in inherently tragic situations.
Riding the Blue Bus by George Radcliffe
For the last few years of her life, Mom rode the blue bus every day from dawn to dusk. She never relaxed for fear of missing her stop. Day after day, she amassed an impressive log of miles but, in fact, never left the comfort of her chair at home.
Dementia may be the cruelest trick life can play on an individual, as it strips away the memory and dignity of an individual, gradually reducing them to a shell of a body. When my mother passed away, many expressed sympathy for my loss. They were several years too late. The person who had been my mother passed years earlier, leaving only a body that resembled the remarkable individual she had been. Learning to cope with an individual with dementia is difficult as one oscillates between laughter over the patient’s sometimes comical pronouncements and guilt and sadness over feeling inadequate to deal with them.
My wife Jackie and I took my mother in after my father’s sudden death. Severe dementia had already set in, and the person in my mother’s body was fading one neuron at a time. Her short-term memory had vanished, and her long-term memory exhibited significant cracks. We were her caregivers, but a local adult daycare gave us an occasional break. Their little blue bus picked her up several mornings a week and brought her back by early afternoon. Long after she ceased riding the blue bus, she would continue to ride it in her mind. That memory was holding firm. Initially, we tried to return her to Earth to no avail.
“When do I get off the bus?” she would ask.
“Mom. You’re not on a bus.”
After a puzzled look, “But when do I get off?”
“Mom, look at the bed and TV. This is your bedroom. You’re safe at home with us?”
“Yes, but I need to know when to get off.”
There was no getting her off that danged bus. The situation reminded me of one of my favorite Kingston Trio songs, “Charlie on the MTA,” a 1959 remake of an older campaign song. In the song, Charlie can never get off the mass transit train as he doesn’t have the needed change for the newly added exit fare.
As with poor old Charlie, Mom would ride that bus forever. Realizing that we would never get her “off the bus,” we went along for the ride. We used the same strategy when she asked where my father was after his death. After telling her several mornings that he had died and then watching her suffer again, we gave in and had him outside mowing the grass … even with snow on the ground. When it became clear that it didn’t matter to her what he was doing as long as he was doing something, we had Dad orbiting the Earth on the Space Shuttle, skydiving, and playing tight end for the Baltimore Ravens. To an observer, it must have seemed we were disrespecting my mother, but she was mentally beyond reacting to things we were saying. The questioning was constant, and a sense of humor was our only way of coping. We were poking fun at the disease, not her. We also found that an outrageous answer sometimes broke the nonstop chain of questions.
So, we rode the blue bus every day with Mom. She would drift off to sleep periodically, and Jackie and I could temporarily disembark. Then came that fateful Sunday when I was determined to get her off the bus for just one day. Jackie had gone out with a friend for a much-needed escape. Mom and I rode the bus all morning, and I was overdosing on reruns of Family Feud, that nauseating game show pitting two families against each other. Game shows were the only TV she could follow. There was no plot, and short-term memory loss made it impossible to follow anything else. She could live her life one question at a time with a game show.
I wheeled her into our family room, thinking that a change of venue might trigger something that would signal that we were no longer on a bus. I sat her beside a window with a beautiful water view. I knew she realized she was looking at water when she asked if I had seen a boat. My grand plan seemed to work until she asked, “When do we get off the bus?”
I needed to alter additional variables to break the fixation. I could turn on the TV in that room, but we needed to watch something other than Family Feud. I turned to TCM, hoping to find an older movie that might jog her memory: Fred Astaire’s dancing, Judy Garland’s singing, or the wonderful dialogue between Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. That was when the blue bus had a catastrophic head-on collision.
Of the thousands of movies TCM could have been airing, why did it have to be A Night to Remember, the British film version of Walter Lord’s account of the sinking of the Titanic? With the ship sinking on a wide screen, Mom grabbed my arm and screamed. Her gaze switched from the TV to the creek outside. I dove for the TV controller, but the damage was done.
“Quick, get your father; we’re sinking!”
“Mom, we’re not on a ship!”
“But we’ve got to get off.”
“Mom, this is our house. Look around you. Get your father, please!”
“Mom, he’s not inside.”
“Please, … NOW! You have to get him off the ship. He may not know we’re sinking.”
“Mom, he’s outside mowing grass.”
“Hurry; we have to get off the boat.”
Sobbing hysterically, she started frantically wheeling her chair around the room, looking for an exit. Knowing there was no way to convince her that there was no boat, I wheeled her outside. She looked for Dad, and I informed her he was cutting grass on the property next door. That satisfied her. We took a short walk up the lane … anything to get her mind off the movie. A few seconds normally sufficed for her to forget, but intense experiences lingered longer. After ten minutes of no mention of a boat, we returned to the house.
I quickly closed the blinds in case the water keyed the memory. There was no way I would turn the TV on again. With my luck, TCM would now be showing The Flight of the Phoenix, and I knew there were no parachutes in the house. However, within thirty seconds, we were back on the Titanic, and I was sent to rescue my father again. I told her he was safely on land, but there was no reasoning with her. We headed outside again, staying longer this time. It was chilly that day, but at least we weren’t sinking. I had to break the boat fixation somehow. I finally decided it was safe to move inside, but we were quickly back on the Titanic. This scenario continued until even when we went outside, we were still on the boat with my father, nowhere to be seen. I was starting to get homesick for that blue bus.
Deciding that it was better to sink in a warm house than out in the chilly fall air, I returned her to her chair in her room with no water view … and the Family Feud marathon. She trembled with fear as I continued to race about the ship, assuring her all was OK and that Dad was no longer on board. I explained how he had been a hero, successfully evacuating all the passengers from the ship, and that eased her somewhat. After months of trying to get her off the blue bus, I couldn’t believe I was trying to get her back on it. Finally, exhausted, she drifted off to sleep. A while later, her eyes opened, and she looked around. Sizing up the situation, she looked at me and asked, “When do we get off the bus?”
Never again did we try to get Mom off that bus. The following spring, her dementia worsened, and the questions stopped. She may have still been on the bus, but there was no way to know. In spirit, Mom had taken the bus to heaven, but her body would hang on for another year.
Dementia is brutal on caregivers. Parent and child reverse roles as the child has to become the parent, or a spouse sees their partner gradually reduced to an infantile state. Jackie and I maintained our sense of humor throughout the five years we cared for my mother. Humor is the best way to deal with life’s stress, and dementia poses nonstop stress for the caregiver. Being asked the same question throughout the day, day after day, can wear down even the most robust individual. I was the lucky one; I could share the stress with my remarkable wife.
I see those blue buses regularly. They elicit a smile, proof that Jackie and I survived intact. If either has a bad day, the other will lovingly say the blue bus is on the way. Mom is probably still riding that blue bus if there is a heaven. Gazing out the window, she sees my father happily mowing grass. No longer anxious, she sits back and enjoys the ride. She has found her peace.
GEORGE M. RADCLIFFE has taken up writing after 40 years as an award-winning science teacher. In addition to a blog, he has authored four books, all found at georgeradcliffe.com: two books of personal memoirs, a biography of U.S. Sen. George L. Radcliffe, and The Misadventures of Rodney the Bear, which chronicles the adventures of a remarkable group of teddy bears. He lives with his wife, Jackie, and two beagles on the Dorchester County property his family has owned since 1663. He manages Spocott Farm and the Spocott Windmill and Village.
