Singing With Dad

 

I come from a singing family.  We've always sung, especially in the car.  Both my parents had good voices and loved to sing.  My mother had a sweet soprano that would have been very good had she had lessons - but she had no conception of indulging in singing lessons.  Singing lessons were for professional singers and none of us thought of ourselves as having that potential. 

My grandfather also sang.  He was a cockney and taught us songs from the first World War - Tipperary, Someone's in the kitchen with Dina, Pack Up Your Troubles, and She's Only a Girl in a Gilded Cage …He had a wonderful tenor, and together with my uncle Alec and aunts, we could put on a spontaneous choral harmony as good as any Barbershop group.

It was the singing that above all, gave our Sedorim their unique flavor and made them the highlight of our year.  Later when there were in-laws at the table, they also contributed so that we'd sing late into the night, long past chad gad yo and echad mi yodea, the traditional Seder songs, to music-hall and operettas by Franz Lehar and the early musicals, like Oklahoma.  My Zaida would sing a funny version of Finiculi, Finicula about a man who sat on his hat, uncle Alec would do a remarkable rendition of When the Red, Red Robbin goes Bob Bob Bobbin Along… and dad would sing "Old Man River" and bring tears to your eyes.  My mother loved Veulai - the haunting song by our poet, Rachel, and as she neared the high point of the song, we'd stop breathing in anticipation - would she manage to reach the note this time?

You could say that all my best family memories are bathed in music that fills me with nostalgia.

My father always had a song on his lips; both when he was happy and when he was sad.  I remember when, at my Bobba's funeral, he hummed unselfconsciously while accompanying her coffin on her last journey.    He couldn't stop himself; it was his way of mourning.  Other people cried, but Dad sang his Russian song, and didn't mean to be irreverent.

In the last years of his life, my father and I shared the common experience of widowhood.  First my mother died and then a few years later my husband died and when my daughter returned to live in South Africa, Dad and I found ourselves alone in Israel with no relatives except each other.  Fortunately, we'd had the good sense to buy apartments in the same building, so we were nearby and could support each other.

When my dad grew old, he lost his eyesight and his hearing, and his life experiences became seriously limited.  After a few bad falls, he lost confidence in walking and gradually his living space became smaller and smaller and emptier and increasingly sterile.  This was a terrible fate for my dad who had been a voracious reader and used his computer to keep him connected to the world.

As Dad saw and heard less, he found himself living in a space surrounded by images he could only vaguely see and sounds that confused and irritated him. And, he became increasingly withdrawn and out of touch. 

When I took him to a gerontologist, she diagnosed dementia, but I think that what Dad mainly suffered from was sensory deprivation and isolation.

Imagine living in a world where you can’t see anything but shadowy figures, and when you can no longer hear. In the early phases of the illness, Dad complained that his glasses did not suit him and that his hearing aid no longer worked. We spent hours going to optometrists and hearing specialists and they tried this and that – but nothing helped.  Eventually I understood that it was not only his eyes or ears that didn’t see or hear – but that his brain, could not interpret these signals and give them meaning.  When Dad looked at a picture, he couldn’t perceive what he was seeing.  If it was a scene with animals – he always enjoyed shows about animals – he could no longer distinguish the animal – the lion or the tiger, from the background.  It made me think of what William Janes meant when he talked about  new born babies perceiving the world as a “booming buzzing confusion.”

As Dad's companion and main carer, I was challenged to keep him connected.  I visited him throughout the day and tried to have conversations with him.  Usually, we talked about the past and although he said he couldn’t remember, if I asked a question, and prompted him, we could spin out a story … about his old business  … his days in the Zionist Youth, his parents and their first house in Harrington Street in Cape Town, fishing at the docks, and about his days singing in the Gardens shul choir, which he only joined because, as he gleefully said, the choir-boys were paid pocket money for participating!

Often our conversations would remind Dad of a song, and he would start burbling a melody and fragments of words that he remembered.  As time went on and it became easier to break into his dreamlike existence, I began to use 'singing' consciously to connect with him.

We sang all his old songs; a kind of ritual developed around them.  First my Zaida's songs … then I would say, "What was that song that aunty Molly used to sing?"  And he would, with a little encouragement, break out with Only a Girl in a Gilded Cage. "And Mommy?"  Oh yes, and we would sing Ve'ulai… and Arum der Fyre … “And was there a song that Bobba liked?"  He would ponder on this and then start singing the Communist anthem, and we would laugh delightedly because wasn't it funny that he should think of that?  No matter how dull he'd been just a short while ago, if I started singing, "Daar kom die Alibama" he would spontaneously sing with me.  And sometimes I would pull him out of his chair and dance with him, too.

Eventually Dad needed a permanent caregiver to live with him and Blayne came to live with him.

 For a long time Dad didn’t want Blayne in his home and I don’t think he ever really knew who the hell this man was. Sometimes Dad would ask, “who is this man who lives in my flat and uses all my things?  What’s he doing here?” 

Even though I explained who Blayne was, Dad couldn’t understand, and he was irritated and suspicious of him.  I told Blayne to always speak to Dad from the front – to never stand behind him and talk.  He should also not speak on his phone to his friends or family in Dad’s presence.  I said, “Imagine if you couldn’t see someone, or really hear, but there was a buzz around you and shadows moved around your periphery.  How scary would that be?  If Dad hears you speaking but can tell where the voices came from or who is speaking – it could feel like there are many people in the house!  And be frightening.

While Blayne was the most wonderful, kind and loving companion, I knew that it was difficult for him to converse with Dad.  He was not Dad's equal in education, and they had no common interests.  Dad was no longer interested in other people's worlds.   So I helped Blayne establish a routine around singing,

I created a playlist of songs for Blayne to play on the television, which ran for about thirty minutes.  It had songs in English, Hebrew, Yiddish and Afrikaans.  Even when Dad was not in the mood to listen, Blayne would put the recording on in the background and before long, Dad would start murmuring. When Dad grew agitated and frustrated, Blayne could change his moods with these songs. 

The amazing thing was that although Dad could not remember what he ate five minutes ago … he could remember melodies and songs from the old days, perfectly.  He could sing Die Stem, the South African anthem, in Afrikaans, from beginning to end.  And  he could recite poems by Robbie Burns with a convincing Scottish accent, and Afrikaans ones that he'd learned at school.

After that, I would prepare a list of songs to sing and we would spend a happy half hour or more together.

Singing with my father enriched my last few months with him. Towards the end, my father hardly knew who I was, and when I asked him, he would say, “a kind lady who comes to visit me.”  But still, when I came into the room, his whole face would light with pleasure in anticipation of something good. 

My last memory is of an evening near the end, when he was distressed and in pain because his internal organs had ceased to function.  My brother had come from New York, and I can still remember us lying together on Dad’s bed, singing 'Old Man River'. Well, sort of …