Road to Heaven

My good friend Jimmy Moore has told me countless stories over the years, but this is one of my favorites.

"I was in church one Sunday, and the preacher asked everybody, said, 'Anyone who wants to go to heaven, raise your hand.' And there was an old guy in the front row that didn't raise his. And the preacher asks him, says, 'Son, you mean you don't want to go to heaven?' And the fellow says, 'Sure, I want to go to heaven. But I thought y'all was fixing up a load to go today!'" Mr. Jimmy added, "That's how I feel about it. I'm ready to go, but it'll be OK with me if I'm left awhile."

Mr. Jimmy will be 90 this July. I had the chance to visit with him this weekend at the Veterans Administration Nursing Home in Jackson. I was apprehensive before our visits. Would he remember me? Would we be able to carry on conversation, as we used to for hours on end? Would his restricted living conditions be heart-breaking?

Yes, yes, and yes. He not only remembered me, but he'd managed - with the help of a sensitive social worker - to make a note on the bulletin board and review day & time so as to expect my visit on Thursday, May 12th at 3pm. We were able to talk for hours, first about his experiences in World War II (I had been guided by family members to engage his more distant, and hence clearest, memories) but eventually also about running, about marriage, about the blessings of God in our lives. The details of any given topic were fuzzy, as if the artist had taken his finely drawn canvas and rubbed the whole thing -- no single running race remains fixed in his mind, not even the details about his courtship, marriage, and parting with Eva are fixed -- but the colors are true and vivid, and he cries easily at the improbable grace of it all. "I've never felt better in my life, Samantha," he told me.

Sitting side-by-side on his bed, we watched the film we made together ten years ago about his life and running. (view film & website here) Reflected on the iPad's glass, I watched his 90-year old face beside his 80-year old self, the laughter at his own good humor amplified by the joy of remembering. After the moment in the film when he describes holding Eva at the moment she died, the screen goes black for a moment. In that space remained the reflection of Mr. Jimmy now, tears flowing again. I made the film for me and others I hoped would love him and be influenced by him as I have been. But at that moment I realized the film's potential to restore memories even to him. His mind is something like a library whose card catalog is beset by a mischievous monkey yanking and re-ordering the cards. Today he might not remember that we watched the film together last Saturday, but in the moment he had the lovingly worn books back in his hands.

Mr. Jimmy walks the hallways with the lightness of a dancer. His running shoes and hoodie make him appear, from behind, like a teenager out on the town looking for adventure. It is painful to watch my dear friend's mind betray his abundantly healthy body. I've been gripped by the urgent desire to "do something," but what?

My mother, who accompanied me, explained how Alzheimer's makes of our minds a film playing backward as we regress through the decades to some essential self. There can be a stage of intense anger, which I did not witness with Mr. Jimmy. What I witnessed was a man subject to spontaneous crying out of joy and gratitude to his Lord for giving him this life, a realization rooted in the trials of World War II. I saw a man who continues to check his watch with the regularity of the train dispatcher he once was. I saw a man who continues to measure his life in miles - how many traveled, how many yet to go. I saw a gentleman who couldn't place my mother, but afforded her the courtesy and warm welcome he would to any visitor to his home - even when it was a nursing home.

However blurry the colors, Mr. Jimmy knew this was our chance to exchange essential words. That we can't rely on a next visit, even if, God willing, I can get to Mississippi again while he remains with us. He knows enough to know his mind is slipping. We shared a long cry about how much we treasured this unpredicted friendship across time and space. And then it was time for us to go. Always a gentleman, he insisted on walking us to the door.

**********

When I got home to Brooklyn, Wiley had declined visibly during my three days away. The inverse of Mr. Jimmy, Wiley's eyes met me with the clarity of mental presence but the strain of great physical pain. His front right paw now shakes all the time, the one that was broken years ago. He may have been hit by a car, or a motorcycle from the reaction they draw. The bones in that arm fused into a single rigid staff that served him adequately until a few months ago when the arthritis grew unbearable. To compensate, his back hips have bourne more than their share of weight but are now buckling from the effort. To keep weight off that right front leg, he can only sleep curled to the left, which exacerbates the pressure on that left hip. Yesterday his back end went out from under him. He flailed, panicked, on our oak floors until I gathered his hind quarters for him. Last night I could only convince him down half of the stairs needed to reach the sidewalk to take his whizz; he off-roaded to the neighbors patch of garden, thrashing about under a bush until freezing, unsure how to get himself out. Jordy had to carry all 87 pounds of him back inside.

I have had the dream to take Wiley back to New Hampshire for his last days. Where he can perk up to the familiar smells on the approach to highway exit 8. Where he can roll in the grass again. Where he can live off leash, drinking the late afternoon sun into his black coat. Today I doubt he will make it that far.

At the end of the film, Mr. Jimmy takes a water break along the Appalachian Trail. He reflects to me that the running and hiking "prepares you for death, for leaving this world. Because you discover you can enjoy life right up to the end." When I left the nursing home, Mr. Jimmy gave me some simple training advice - "Just run. Run as much as you can, as often as you can. I mean, do the things you've got to do, like go to church, but then just run. And soon you'll discover you can run forever."

I would like to imagine that Mr. Jimmy and Wiley will run off together, trees and blue sky overhead, sun on their backs, minds and bodies aloft with health and vigor, forever.