For about two weeks now I have been reading to Grandpa when I put him to bed for the night. It started when I noticed that during the day he would sometimes pick up a magazine in the living room and try to read it. I figured that instead of trying to read the same half dozen magazines times and again I might provide him with a little more variety. I knew that both because of his Alzheimer’s’s and his failing eye-sight I had to be selective in what I chose to offer him, or else the idea of him reading it would be a non-starter from the beginning.
So next time Titi came visiting I had her bring Caddie Woodlawn with her, which is a novel of probably about 6th grade reading level but which is a good story that anyone of about any age could enjoy. When I offered the book to him to read he seemed mildly interested and later I saw him make an attempt to read. But I could tell it wouldn’t work. Reading the book appeared laborious–something he had to really apply himself too–and after a few pages he would mark his spot and stop. Yet, he did seem interested enough to make an attempt–he just no longer was capable of really following through.
Back in the day Grandpa did read books and I realized that I was picking up various subtle signs that perhaps reading was something that had unwillingly fallen out of Grandpa’s life.
I try to be very careful when I bring up ideas and suggestions with Grandpa. It can be hard to judge how he will react and I don’t wish to say anything that wounds Grandpa’s dignity. So I hesitated before suggesting that I read to Grandpa. I was pretty certain that he would appreciate hearing a story, but I feared he might feel that I was treating him like a child to suggest that I read to him. After all, he read me stories when I was a little boy!
Finally, one evening I made the gentle suggestion, and, surprisingly, Grandpa readily agreed. I figured I would see how it went. Perhaps he was only humoring me and after a night or two Grandpa would grow tired. Sometimes he will be ambivalent about something and will agree to it for a short while before wearying of it.
But Grandpa didn’t weary of the reading. In fact, I quickly learned that he very much enjoyed it. For as long as he was awake he preferred that I kept reading. And so I have kept reading, every night. Sometimes Grandpa will fall asleep shortly after I have begun, sometimes he will remain awake through a few chapters and so I will stop before he falls asleep. I usually read for between a half hour and a hour as I lay on my bed opposite him.
To a certain degree I’m not surprised that Grandpa enjoys the reading so much. It is almost as if he now looks forward to going to bed, as if the nightly reading is there as something he can find waiting for him at the end of his day. Also, as a little kid there were few things I enjoyed more than listening to a good story being read to me. I know the strong pull of listening to a story.
But there is something deeper than just hearing a story going on, I think. After all, I am very much not a good story reader. Not only do I not articulate words well but I simply have a hard time verbally keeping up with the story so I am often rushing my words, I don’t pronounce many words right, and I read just about every thing in a flat monotone. I am well aware of my deficiencies–reading and talking at the same time is just something I’m not really good at. It requires effort from me. And if all Grandpa wanted was a voice droning on telling him a “story” . . . well, before I started reading to him I always started the Bible on CD playing so that as he drifted off to sleep he heard someone reading the Bible aloud. Now that man could read well.
And yet over that Grandpa prefers to hear me read. It isn’t the words, and it isn’t the quality, I can tell you that. I think what Grandpa really appreciates is the deeper thing that goes on when a story is read–the thing deeper than the actual words being transferred. For lack of a better word I will call it bonding. When someone sits down to read to you they are giving a part of themselves–a part of their time–to you. They are, in an indirect way, communicating to you and sharing with you. When someone is reading you a story there is the feeling of being together. You aren’t alone.
Not that I think that we quantify things this way when we realize we enjoy listening to stories–and not to say my words quantifying it really captures it all. But I do think anyone who has had their mother read stories to them realizes that what they enjoy from it is more than the story that Mom is reading. It is that Mom is reading the story . . . or, when it comes down to it, whoever is reading the story. When you listen to a tape it isn’t the same thing. They are dead words then, not the sharing of one person with another. The man reading the Bible is certainly very good–and even I enjoy listening to him–but he is, in the end, only a disembodied voice and if what you’re really hungering for is fellowship and company and for somebody to be near–then having somebody sit beside you and read a story is going to fill that need much better.
I think that long after Grandpa isn’t able to comprehend any of what is being read to him he will still want to be read to because then, as even now, what he is really listening for isn’t the story itself, but the emotional soothing that comes even when words are not understood.
Still, there is the niggling question I think any reader has about their audience. How much does he understand? My answer right now is that when he is listening he understands plenty well enough. But he will often fall asleep halfway through the chapter, and obviously he stops understanding things at least a little before that point. And I know that part of the effects of his disease at this point is that his mind wanders, so I suspect often he follows what I am reading for a time and then his mind wanders off on his own thoughts even while he continues to listen and perhaps sometime later he comes back to actually begin following what I am saying again. Once he was following close enough to correct my mispronunciation of a word.
But in the end, as I have said, how much he understands doesn’t really matter. What matters is that at the end of a chapter I will stop and if he isn’t asleep he will open his eyes and when I ask him if he wants me to keep reading he will say, “Yes.” And I am sure it will be “Yes” even when he has forgot how to say yes anymore. The bedtime reading is a time when he can escape away from all the confusion and fears of the day, a time when he can rest and someone will talk to him and tell him a story that requires no effort and demands nothing of him. It is perhaps the one time of the day one might say he is peaceful.
Leave a Reply