Can We Still Have Tonight?
A story about Alzheimer's, Escapism, and The West Wing
HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
Frozen?
Fearless?
Melancholy?
Morbid?
Mesmerized?
I’M GRATEFUL FOR
IMAX theaters
Stories I can escape into
The TV show LOST, which premiered 20 years ago this month
Watching TV next to someone with Alzheimer’s is stressful, because you never know when a show is going to force you to confront the very thing you’re trying to ignore.
Imagine settling into your spot in your parents’ living room to watch an episode or two of The West Wing after dinner like you always do when you visit. The show is great. You get to watch these characters you love working in the White House. It’s funny. It’s touching. It’s inspiring.
There comes an episode three seasons in where CJ Craig (Alison Janney) starts acting strange. Something is clearly bothering her, but she’s trying not to let it show. The other characters notice, but no on wants to mention it. Over and over she cuts conversations short because he dad keeps calling.
Hmmm. That’s strange.
Toward the end of the episode CJ is trying to get out of an office debate with Toby, one of her colleagues, but he won’t let it go. Fed up, CJ finally blurts out what she’s really been talking about as she beats around the bush, trying to avoid a full on argument. She can’t hold back anymore, though.
“I’m talking about my father,” she blurts out. It didn’t matter what Toby thought they were discussing, this was all that was on her mind.
“Why?”
“Cause he’s not doing fine. He forgets things.”
Imagine watching this next to your father, who is also not doing fine, who is also forgetting things. Your butt would probably clench up just like mine did.
“He forgets things.” CJ repeats herself. It’s all she can bring herself to say. If she gets anymore specific, she might not be able to keep it together. She’s hoping Toby knows what she means. I knew what she meant. My mom was sitting on the other side of my dad, and she did too. And my dad. In the show, Toby didn’t.
“He’s not a young guy anymore.” He says.
“I’m not talking about dates and phone numbers.” CJ pushes back.
“I know.” Or maybe he did understand. Maybe this was how he wanted to comfort his friend, by acting like it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. CJ won’t let him, though.
My heart was racing. What else is CJ going to say? What if she opened up and got honest with her feelings? What if she let out all the things you think when you realize you’re losing your father to Alzheimer’s—all the thoughts I was having too but never shared. Don’t snitch on me to my dad, lady!
Their conversation is cut short when another colleague enters the scene. The show moves on. Nothing else is said about CJ’s dad for the rest of the episode. The next episode doesn’t bring it up either, or the one after that. Me and my clenched butt breathed a sigh of relief.
When the season ended without mentioning him again, I thought we were in the clear. Maybe the show decided not to pursue the storyline. That happens sometimes. You’ll be watching something and think Wait, wasn’t that character supposed to go to clown college? or Didn’t they adopt twenty dogs last season? What happened to all those dogs? If West Wing wanted to drop it, that was fine by me. I didn’t need CJ’s whole story to be about her dad. I thought I was free.
NOPE! WRONG!
Twenty two episodes later is one entitled “The Long Goodbye” and it opens with CJ showing up in her home town to visit her dad.
UH OH!
Here’s the worst part: it’s not a subplot. It’s not a story the episode occasionally cuts back to. It’s the whole freaking thing. The only plot. The show ignores everything else going on to give us forty-four minutes of CJ taking care of her dad.
And guess what? She hates it. She hates seeing her dad like that. At first she can’t even believe it’s happening. Scene after scene she’s got this look on her face like What do you mean you don’t remember?
The dad is living alone, which comes as a shock to CJ. There had been a woman in his life, but she moved out. When CJ confronts her, the woman says it was just too hard to take care of him. She couldn’t handle it. He wasn’t the man she fell in love with anymore. Alzheimer’s was taking that man away and leaving behind someone she barely knew, and who barely knew her.
Imagine how much fun it was to watch this next to my dad.
This is the problem with Alzheimer’s showing up in movies and TV: if it’s a cancer story, you’ve got a 50/50 chance the story is from the point of view of the person with cancer. You experience their struggles, their relation with death, with family, and the life they’ve lived so far. With an Alzheimer’s story, it’s rare for it to be from the perspective of the one suffering. Instead you always see it from the family’s point of view, and all of the stories have the same message: It sucks to have someone in your life with Alzheimer’s.
You know what? They’re not wrong! It’s a valid point. It does suck. It absolutely sucks. So many of these stories feel true to life, but I don’t want to watch that next to my dad! I don’t want the tv yelling at him Look how miserable your disease is making your family!
It’s not like we were in denial and the fear was that if a show talked about what we were dealing with, we’d finally have to address something we’d rather ignore. No. Not at all. We talked openly about it all the time. But watching TV was supposed to be our escape from reality. It was a break, a short distraction, a chance to feel like a normal family for a second.
Can we do that?
Are we allowed to have that?
Does everything need to be a reminder of how bad things are getting?
I’m not mad at The West Wing, though. In fact, my ability to even talk about this is because of a moment in the show that had a profound impact on me. It had nothing to do with Alzheimer’s, but it captured this feeling perfectly.
The president, Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), kept his multiple sclerosis a secret for most of his first term in office. His wife, Abbey (Stockard Channing), a medical doctor, treated his minor symptoms whenever they showed up without anyone knowing. When his health got worse, the news finally went public. In the day to day life of the White House, the president’s M.S. was not severe enough to cause problems, but it would still pop in episodes every once in a while those first few seasons.
On Election Day, the president is hoping to win his second term when his M.S. starts to make its presence known again. He tries to hide it from his staff. When he knows he needs to sign some documents, he makes sure to wait until he’s alone before he tries. When he does, his hand won’t stop shaking.
“These can wait,” he tells himself.
Later, when his executive assistant is making changes in the office, the president isn’t happy. He doesn’t understand why he would have to use her to dial all of his calls.
“I can make my own phone calls.” He says.
“Yes, but soon you might not necessarily remember that you did.”
He freezes. No one ever mentioned his M.S around him, or even hinted at it. She dared to, and today of all days. It’s hard for him to find the words but he has to ask.
“Did you bring it up ‘cause you…notice…is there some particular thing today you noticed?”
She tells him no. He’s relieved. Despite how hard the day has been, his symptoms remain a secret.
President Bartlet wins the election (sorry for the spoilers) and that night he delivers his victory speech to a packed house. His wife is by his side through it all. From her spot on stage she can see her husband’s teleprompter, and toward the end of the speech she notices him struggling to read before going off script. She doesn’t show it on her face, but she knows. The speech ends, everyone cheers, the president and his wife wave to the crowd, and walk off stage. It’s a great night. Everyone is over the moon. All of the hard work that went into the campaign has paid off. Backstage, Abbey tries to get her husband to admit to what he’s been hiding, but he’s too busy riding the high from the win to notice. She persists, telling him she knows something’s wrong and she’s willing to call his bluff that everything is fine. He drops his poker face. He knows he’s been found out. He admits to not being able to read the prompter for a minute. They both know what that means.
“It’s alright,” she says before pausing to find the words to say what needs to come next. “There are going to be more days like this. It starts now. It’s going to be harder this time.”
He nods his head and then leans in to ask the question that breaks my heart every time.
“We can still have tonight, though, right?”
You can see the love in Abbey’s face. It all makes sense now. This is why he wanted to hide it. It wasn’t embarrassment. It wasn’t denial. He didn’t want to ruin the day. He wanted to celebrate and enjoy the victory. If anyone saw his hand shaking, everyone’s focus would have completely changed. Every conversation with the president from that point on would have been about his M.S. and nothing else. People would have been worried. It would have been too much, distracting from the excitement of the day. He wanted to preserve that joy, and protect it from any outside invaders. He just wanted to have tonight.
This is why it’s uncomfortable to watch TV next to someone with Alzheimer’s when the disease shows up in what you watching. Sometimes you just want to have tonight. You want to do normal things like a normal family. You want to sit and watch TV like you’ve done your whole life. You don’t want a reminder of how bad things are, or how bad they’re going to get. You’ve spent enough time worrying and planning, and there will be time for more of that later. It can wait until morning.
Let’s just have tonight.
This month I’m writing about escapism and why it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.
Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.
-Chuck D
That’s the key: You gotta come back. And the best escapism doesn’t send you back to reality empty handed. New perspective? New words? A new way to see someone or something? New feelings? Refreshed energy from getting to occupy your mind with something else?
What show/movie/book was a meaningful escape in your life?
October 19 in Dallas
We’re a little over a month away from me bringing my new comedy storytelling show to Dallas, TX.
Escape into some of my most embarrassing and ridiculous stories. Who knows what you might take home with you.
Get tickets now!
Love you like a neighbor,
Taylor Johnson