Alzheimer’s is a cruel disease. It strips the human mind of memory and cognition. It robs the individual of the mastery of his environment. And, in its latest phases, it robs control of the body’s muscles. Eventually, some of those patients with Alzheimer’s cannot control their bowels. That is the ultimate indignity.
But Alzheimer’s is just as cruel to the family, friends, and professional caregivers of the person with the disease. Imagine the Alzheimer’s patient not recognizing a spouse or friend of 50 years or a beloved child. Or think of cleaning up the excrement of an adult who has reverted to the realities of infancy.
Award-winning American novelist Joshua Henkin has captured the effect of Alzheimer’s on the patient and has painted a portrait of a family that has to deal with a loved one inflicted with the disease. His newest work – Morningside Heights – traces the precipitous decline of Spence, a brilliant English professor at Columbia and a genius who is struck by Alzheimer’s at an earlier age than most. It is a painful journey, following the assault on a great mind. The title of the novel is the home of the Columbia University’s neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Not all the action of the novel takes place near Columbia but Morningside Heights is the beginning of the end for Spence.
But the novel is not solely about Spence’s decline. Henkin paints a portrait of a dysfunctional family that must regroup in the face of this crisis. There is Pru, Spence’s dedicated wife with a Jewish background, who sees her husband’s decline day by day. There is Arlo, one of the most fascinating characters in Morningside Heights, who is estranged from his father and returns when his father deteriorates. The professional caregivers are also an important part of the novel. There are other characters in Morningside Heights who were there for Pru when she needed them, including Pru’s brief romance with an older man.
Henkin is brilliant in describing family dynamics. His novel is about a complicated family and not just about Spence’s decline. He is the acclaimed author of novels Swimming Across the Hudson, Matrimony, and The World Without You. He directs the MFA program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College. He was inspired to write this new novel, in part, because of his father Louis Henkin – a brilliant legal scholar and, like Spence, a professor at Columbia University. In his last years, Louis Henkin suffered from dementia. While Spence was younger than Professor Henkin in his decline, the author’s personal experience informs the novel.
As we enter the Hebrew month of Elul, the Season of Repentance, I always think of the words of the Thirteen Attributes of God: “Adonai, Adonai, God gracious and compassionate, patient, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, assuring love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin and granting pardon.” Compassion: For those who are struck down by illness and for those who have to care of them. We often focus on those who are ill. But life turns upside down for everyone close to the Alzheimer’s patient.
Repentance and compassion are central to Elul. For all the mistakes that Spence made –mostly in his relationship with Arlo – he deserved the compassion that comes with repentance. Pru googled “Alzheimer’s” and “suicide” and found an article about a professor with the disease who killed herself. One night, when Pru found Spence found asleep, she thought he was dead. Henkin described “She touched his cheek, but he still didn’t move, so she put her forefinger under his nose to make sure he was still breathing.”
We hope for a life of health and happiness in the Jewish New Year. But often we face obstacles that seem in insurmountable. In the end, Spence dies like all Alzheimer’s patients. And we all face mortality. We can only hope that the survivors support each other and try their hardest to be compassionate in the most difficult of times.
The writer serves as rabbi of Congregation Anshei Sholom in West Palm Beach, Florida.