I Hate Visiting Dante

My grandfather Salvator died in 1923, and my mother never met her father, so Jim D’Agastino was the closet resemblance to a grandfather I had as a boy.  Jim met my grandmother (my mother’s side) at Kimble’s Glass House where they both worked. I spent every weekend and most of my summers at their house in Glassboro throughout the 1970s.  In their mid-50s, Jim and my grandmother traveled the country, seeing every state along the way.  “Jungle Jim” as he was called by many of his friends, had an exuberant lust for life.   

During the early 1980s, time began to take its toll on Jim, and before long, the World War II vet was admitted to the Vineland Veterans Home.  Vineland is a stone’s throw from Rosenhayn, so my grandmother visited a few times a week and without fail, every Sunday.  Most of those Sundays I would tag along with her, we would drive to the back building and take the elevator to the fourth floor. I would carry a bag she prepared filled with random items such as Jim’s favorite fruit (he was a big fan of cantaloupe and kiwi as I recall), a new pair of sweatpants or socks, and yesterday’s newspaper.   

When we would check in to Jim’s floor, we would always receive a warm greeting from Amani the floor supervisor, “Gud mawnin Mrs. D ow yuh duh today?”  she had the coolest Jamaican accent.  “And gud mawnin Antony, such a gud bowy helping yuh grandmotha dis morning.” I rarely saw anyone else having visitors, it always seemed sad to me I would think to myself, “Don’t these people have families that love and miss them?” I later asked my grandmother why these other residences have their children and grandchildren ever visit?  She told me that it wasn’t easy for some people to get here.  At first, I thought she meant because of their busy lives or maybe work, but to me there was no excuse for showing up on a Sunday. 

I would see walking or wheeling down the corridors, and how many would perk up and grin with a “Good morning, thank you for your service.” I thought these people deserved better than that, I just concluded in my innocent and naïve 12-year-old brain that they must have terrible families to let them rot away and be forgotten in an “old folks’ home.”

On Sundays I visit Dante, and I hate it.  I get up and I begin to mentally prepare myself for the task at hand.  I go through my checklist, Dante’s favorite fruit, (plums and apples) clean laundry, and nerds.  We eat lunch in his room so it could be McDonalds or Big Johns pizza, (I go to Bridgeton, buy it freeze it and warm it up for him).  But most days I procrastinate going on my visit, because it hurts me seeing Dante, knowing how he got here, knowing what he had been through, knowing the failed promise I made to him and to myself.

I think back to the other veterans who never received visitors and how I judged those families with my ignorant pre-teen brand of righteous wisdom.  It’s one of the hardest things to accept, seeing someone you love taken away from you for their own benefit.  Sometimes it gets easier, and then it gets harder again.  You find yourself mourning the living, it is a cruel dynamic. The Vineland Veterans’ Home is an unusually similar dichotomy.

I handed it to my grandmother for her dedication visiting as consistently as she did, and now I understand what she meant when she told me that it wasn’t easy for some people to get here.  And for that matter, maybe Amani’s praise for accompanying my grandmother was deeper than I thought. It couldn’t have been easy on her seeing someone she cared for in such a humble state, and Jim did cheer up with a curious, surprised smile when I entered the room, maybe I made the trip easier for my grandmother to bear.

Those memories of the Vineland Veterans’ Home motivate me to visit Dante with exuberance and enthusiasm.  Despite my concerns over staff, laundry, missing items, his health, hygiene and overall well-being, I am the epitome of optimism and joy when I visit.  From the moment I walk into the room, to the moment I maneuver for my departure, my demeaner is overjoyed and upbeat, with a smile on face and tears of a clown.