The other day I was, as usual, seated next to Anthony in his nursing home room. We were watching the Food channel on television and, just for fun, I kept turning my head in his direction until he turned his head towards me.
Anthony has enormous eyes that are made even more enormous due to the fact that he doesn’t blink very much (Parkinson’s). So I kept joking about this and saying “What big eyes you have!” half-hoping he would remember the fairy-tale response.
Instead, he just kept sliding his eyes towards mine and, every time he did this, I cracked up laughing. Such a silly game but so much fun. I would sneakily avert my face from the TV and look at him until he looked at me and every time he did this I would burst into laughter which made him smile too.
Such absolute nonsense, but so hilarious for both of us. We’ve been doing the nonsense thing quite a bit over the last couple of years but it didn’t occur to me until now that this kind of interaction might be worth writing about.
I guess it would be hard to write this kind of nonsense thing up as an actual therapy, but, for us, it is proving to be the most wonderful thing. Anthony has always had the most amazing sense of humour and, despite all of his illnesses, this sense of humour is still intact.
I am so grateful that he and I can still get a laugh out of each other despite the circumstances. Ants has been in the nursing home for so long now that every single smile, regardless of nonsense, is like gold.
Two days ago my second great-nephew was born to my second nephew and wife. He, the baby, joins his two-year-old sister (my first great-niece); and my first nephew’s partner is expecting their child soon!
jmgoyder 