Author:
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Beth Macy |
Source:
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The Roanoke Times
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Date:
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May 15, 2008
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Format:
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Long Feature |
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Narratives about aging, like Beth Macy’s “Caring for Tommy,” follow a predictable path. Injury or illness (here, West Nile virus) precipitates a cascade of decline. Tommy Rhodes’ mental deterioration leaves him unable to care for himself or to recognize his wife Linda. Conflicts arise between Linda and her children about how to handle the heavy financial and emotional burden that comes with Tommy.
But this Roanoke Times story manages to avoid many of the dangers of the formulaic approach. Macy hits the requisite notes while providing a counterpoint of anecdotes that distinguish Tommy and Linda’s life together. An unexpectedly crude joke from Tommy about Lawrence Welk, a message that he loves his wife (even as he can’t distinguish television from reality), and his retort when Linda tells him he’s put his shoes on the wrong feet (“These are my feet”) keep reminding us that a person still lives in the shell of Tommy.
“Linda Rhodes’ worst fear is not that she’ll wake up one morning and find her husband, Tommy, dead,” the story begins. Macy then tells us that Rhodes worries something will happen to her, leaving no one to care for her husband. After cycling through the couple’s marital history and the transformation of their partnership to a one-sided dependency, Macy closes with a scene in which Linda believes Tommy has died. Macy’s artful structure has set the couple so exquisitely before us that we feel the relief of knowing Linda can fulfill her role to the end.
We also sense the combination of happiness and despair that Linda might feel when Tommy wakes up a half-hour later — not to his wife, as far as he knows, but to a woman he can trust, a woman who helps him. As they go upstairs to bed, we feel the relentlessness of responsibility, the shadow of their former life, and the preciousness of each moment that Linda cares for Tommy.
Read excerpts from an interview with Beth Macy.
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© 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College