The ramp - aging and life's challenges - Brief Article

It's not easy to carry on a conversation with Jerry. Finding the right word is not his thing; finding the right wood or the right tool is. He'd much rather get on with the job than stand around picking through words.

Jerry has been doing jobs around my old house for a half-dozen years. His work is terrific. Whenever something needs fixing, he picks through all the possible ways, from materials to tools to time to methods of concealment. Usually he settles on just the right combination. Most recently, he got me through the problem of the slow-draining bathtub. "Galvanized pipe," Jerry said, "probably only a finger open for the water to get through." Getting access to the pipes through bathroom walls and kitchen ceiling was a big problem, but Jerry figured out how to do it and exposed the pipes for the plumber with minimal damage.

When, at age eighty-six, my father moved from Los Angeles to my home in New Haven, Jerry built the wall of doors that allowed us to turn the dining room into a bedroom. When my father first arrived, he had no problem getting around with his walker. But in his ninetieth year, after numerous falls, we decided to put the walker away and use a wheelchair. I called Jerry about constructing a ramp outside the back door.

The following Saturday he set to work at nine, and by three we had a first-class ramp. I've been looking at other ramps ever since and have yet to see its equal. I see ramps made of nothing more than sheets of plywood. I see ramps without the cleats that would prevent the pusher from slipping and sliding. I see ramps that are too long or too short. Jerry's, made of one-by-six planks with half-inch spaces for drainage between them, would be a sure winner in any competition.

My father died two years ago, and the ramp is still up.

Lately, I've been telling myself that the ramp is Dad's memorial. I go up and down it several times a day. And often, especially in foul weather, I have vivid images of him, hanging on, angry, or laughing, as I struggle to push him up the ramp or to hold him back going down.

I've been a single man ever since my partner decamped for New Mexico, freeing herself of the burden of having to share her home with an aged parent in need of help. But I most definitely do not like the idea of going through the rest of my life alone, without loving and being loved. So I've found myself wondering about the effect of the ramp on a female guest: "What on earth does he need a wheelchair ramp for? Is he anticipating his decline, expecting to become a cripple?" I've come close to deciding to have the ramp taken down.

Almost all the work Jerry has done for me has been on Saturdays. After the plumber did his work, Jerry was apologetic about not being able to come out on the next Saturday to start the patching up. He had promised to take his wife to Boston to visit their daughter. "She loves to do that," he said. "It'll probably be the last time, though. She's got lung cancer, and it's getting worse. She was a smoker."

Jerry became as talkative as he has ever been with me. He can't work as much as he would like. He has had to turn down kitchen jobs, because "once you start you can't stop in the middle." His wife needs him more and more, and he just doesn't know when he'll have to give up a day's work and stay home. I told Jerry that the work for me didn't necessarily have to be done on Saturday. I gave him my weekday at-home schedule and told him to come out at any of the times when I would be home.

Jerry finished up during the week before the Boston trip. As he was getting his stuff together, I asked him how much he would want to take down the wheelchair ramp. He stepped outside to have a look. Usually, Jerry is pretty quick to quote a price. But it was apparent that this was one job he didn't want.

"You know, you really shouldn't take it down," he said. "We aren't getting any younger, you and me. You never know. You might need it. If I was you, I'd leave it alone."

Paul Marx teaches in the department of English at the University of New Haven.

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