The administrator of the apartment building offered to inform David of the decision.  She and the director joined us in David’s apartment, and they explained their concerns about his safety.  Then Fiona joined us by Zoom.  We said little; mostly sat together in the sadness.  “They shouldn’t be making me do this,” David said at one point.  “Dad, do you like living in your apartment?”  Fiona asked.  “No,” he said. “I hate it.”  It’s not safe for you, Fiona said, and you’re alone far too much.  His anger and desperation eased.

The fact that David regarded his apartment as a jail cell made him more willing to leave, but he was convinced that he was being evicted.  He was more or less right about that.  He was indignant and distraught, and he was frantic about the cost.  “I’ll have nothing left,” he kept saying.  Here, too, he was probably right.  Assisted living memory care might be the last placement, but we’d known from the outset that he would probably need skilled nursing and that the cost of care was likely to exhaust his retirement savings.  And my heart sank when I pictured his reaction to the locked memory care unit. 

The same movers returned.  They brought many of David’s belongings to my house and then drove the truck to the memory care facility to move and arrange the furniture.  While we unpacked, David was quiet; I was too brisk and too cheerful.  Outside, in the common room, the tv blared.  Residents stopped by or wandered in.  Someone was screaming. 

David was safer, but at a steep cost.  Medical staff would be on hand if he had an episode of weakness or fell.  The nurse would oversee his medications and recommend changes.  But he had no say over his meals and schedule.  He could leave the building only if staff members accompanied residents outside or if I came to get him, and I could take him only to a same-day medical appointment or to my house. 

Everyone was improvising in the summer of 2020, and long-term care facilities were under enormous strain.  Still, some of the policies seemed inexplicable.  The resident handbook listed activities and exercise classes; the administrator explained that the state Department of Health required suspending activities because of COVID.  Instead of attending activities and classes, residents clustered on the couches and chairs in front of the tvs.  They didn’t wear masks because it’s impossible to enforce mask-wearing in memory care.  Walking through the common areas and observing the clusters of residents, it was hard to see how suspending activities prevented the spread of COVID.  Why didn’t the staff members put some distance between people and invite them to join a game or seated exercise session?  Instead, staff members stood by in little groups, chatting about their weekend plans while residents sat right next to each other and watched hour after hour of tv.