I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a people pleaser or because I’ve learned the value of “facing my danger,” but the night before I am scheduled to interview Kim Campbell, I climb into my bed, pull the blankets around me and finally load the documentary “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.” I’d avoided the film in the theaters, and when it aired on CNN, I dutifully set my DVR to record, but then I let it sift to the bottom of my list. My husband and I would sometimes skim past it, simultaneously exhaling the words “Too sad” before we turned our attention to the innocuous babble of “House Hunters.”
Just like Glen Campbell, my dad lost his ability to communicate. He wore adult diapers. He forgot how to chew his food. Alzheimer’s set fire to the building that was my father and gutted him. I don’t need to watch a film to understand the ravages of this disease.
I keep a notebook on my lap and a pen in my hand to make it clear that I am watching this film for work, for an article I’m writing. I take a lot of comfort in the feeling of pen meeting lined yellow page. I write, “(when he plays) he becomes himself again.” I write “picking his teeth with a Swiss Army knife.” I think about how painting and drawing brought my dad back to himself. He had a Swiss Army knife, too. In the later stages of the disease, he used it to dig splinters (real and imaginary) out of his skin.
About halfway through the film, my kids appear at the door.
“Are you crying?” my son wants to know. Lately, my tears hold for my son the grisly wonder of a car wreck on the interstate. He knows he shouldn’t be thrilled, but he can’t look away.
“Of course,” I reply.
“Poor Mom,” my daughter says. She snuggles down next to me and puts her head on my shoulder. My son stretches out at the foot of the bed like a big Labrador retriever, and we watch together as Glen Campbell and his family take their show on the road.
It has been nearly 14 years since my father died. My kids know all the stories, but they never met the man. As we watch, I realize that the Rhinestone Cowboy and Dad share many qualities, including a quick wit and a love of roadside gift shops. On screen, Glen picks out a glow-in-the-dark dog collar and wears it out of the shop. His wife, Kim, stands back and laughs. It’s hard not to join her.
“Is he like Grandpa Ross?” my son asks.
“A lot like Grandpa Ross,” I reply.
Glen, like my dad, seems to take a genuine interest in the world. Some people might call this “childlike,” but to me it’s an appropriate reverence and amazement for all things beautiful, strange and funny. In Dad’s case, Alzheimer’s amplified this reaction, leveling the playing field enough so that Picasso could share equal weight with the nameless guy who designed the M&Ms candy wrapper.
As the documentary shows Glen’s daughter Ashley testifying in front of Congress, my own daughter worms a little closer to me.
“It’s hard that someday my dad might look at me and I will be absolutely nothing,” Ashley says.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that my daughter is working hard not to cry. Without taking her eyes off the television, she slings an arm across my chest. I can feel her muscles tense with the effort of keeping her emotions in check as we watch a beautifully edited sequence of Glen forgetting the names of his children.
I remember the day my dad forgot my name. It was the same day he asked my 11-year-old cousin to help him get away from “this lady.” The lady was me.
At the end of the tour, Glen struggles to find the words to “Gentle on My Mind.” He plays the wrong notes on his guitar and turns to the rest of the band for help. On either side, his son and daughter look increasingly worried.
I’m openly weeping now. My daughter pulls up the quilt to hide her wet cheeks.
Thanks to my dad, the lyrics to practically every Glen Campbell song are locked in my brain along with “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” and every verse of “Tangled Up in Blue.” I’ve got Dad’s green eyes.
The kids and I watch the rest of the movie in silence. When the credits roll, my son pops up, kisses me and takes himself off to bed. My daughter stays next to me. She’s very quiet, but her body is shaking with sobs.
“Mommy,” she says in the tiniest voice. “Will you get Alzheimer’s?”
* * *
The next morning, I speak to Kim Campbell on the phone. I am sheepish when I admit I didn’t want to see the film.
“There’s a lot of days I want to stick my head in the sand,” she replies.
She’s trying to be chipper but says Glen can’t speak any longer. He doesn’t seem to understand language. “Or maybe he does understand,” she continues. “I cuddle up with him and wrap my arms around him. It’s all I have. I’m constantly grieving, and it just goes on and on.”
Her voice breaks and trails off. I press the phone to my ear. My eyes burn with tears.
“So you saw your father at the end?” Kim asks. She tells me she doesn’t want to think that far ahead. She can’t bear to think of it, but she’s asking anyway.
“Not at the very end,” I say. I was pregnant with my son and unable to travel from Southern California to Albuquerque at the end of my dad’s life. I often regret not being able to be there. And I regret it again, now, because this kind woman is bravely asking for a glimpse of the future but I’m not able to give it.
My daughter had been asking a similar question, and I couldn’t give her a real answer either.
“No,” I had replied. “No. I won’t get Alzheimer’s.”
It was a knee-jerk answer. It was what my 11-year-old needed to hear. But we both paused a little, as if to make space for this preposterous statement to pass.How can I know?
“All you can do is keep a merry heart,” Kim Campbell advises throughout the documentary. She says it again at the end of our conversation. Very often I do just that. But there are moments in the day when I’ve misplaced something or forgotten a name or date, moments when I can’t quite put my finger on the right word. It’s at times like these that the big question looms. Until we find a cure for Alzheimer’s, there can be no real answer. The danger I faced while watching “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me,” was not the resurrection of my father’s fate, but the mystery of my own future.
