TBT: 'You can't drive anymore'

They are the four words family caregivers hate to say and Loved Ones hate to hear: “You can’t drive anymore.” 

Martin had had two minor auto accidents in a two-week span. The first one I explained away. It was dark, he was navigating a steep driveway and it was icy. He scraped his voice teacher’s car, resulting in more than $1,000 in damages. 

The second accident occurred in broad daylight. Martin was leaving the auto repair shop where his truck’s oil had just been changed. The minivan in front of him was stopped as there was a logging truck approaching. Martin came to a full stop and then BOOM! He had rear-ended the minivan in front of him. He  emerged from his pickup which sustained nary a scratch and said, “Nothing beats a Ford truck.’’ The rear of the minivan, however, looked like the victim of some horrible implosion. Martin returned to his pickup, pulled around the minivan with me and our dog inside and drove off.

“WTF?” I asked, using the words, not the letters. “He just hit us and left,’’ I said to Fergus, who no longer was in the passenger seat, but instead was on the minivan floor. Bark, bark, bark, indeed.

Five minutes later I turned into our condo parking lot and there was Martin surveying his front end and exuding the kind of pride reserved for parents of children who graduate from MIT magna cum laude with a PhD in pure mathematics at age 12. 

I knew the day would come when his driving days would be over. I had practiced how I would say it, recognizing that I would need to be sensitive since I knew I would be taking away more than just the keys and the pickup. His pride, his freedom and his dignity were also in the mix. That day I just looked at him as he admired his truck. He didn’t ask how I was. He didn’t ask how the dog was. He didn’t look to see how my minivan was. (This repair would cost $1,700.) Instead, he turned, walked towards the house and asked, “You coming?” I responded in a rather loud voice, “You are never driving ever again! Never. Ever!” 

I was reminded of this yesterday when a gray-haired elderly soul slooooowly turned her Buick in front of me, cutting me and everyone else off, then she slooooowly drove in front of us—well below the posted 35 mph speed limit and a little too close to the double yellow line that separated us from northbound traffic. Then, as if suddenly starring in “Fast and Furious 6,’’ girlfriend was gone. I swear the menagerie of stuffed animals festooning her back window mouthed, “Help us.’’ 

There are a lot of people out there driving who should not be driving. As a society we have no qualms taking away the keys from our kids when they drive badly, yet when it comes to the elderly driving like bats and wombats outta hell, we tend to tap the brakes lightly. Yeah, yeah, there’s the whole pride-dignity-freedom thing, but we are also reluctant to de-key the elderly because if they can’t drive then we—by default—become Hoke Colburn to their Miss Daisy, and I can’t think of a lot of folks who say, “Yes, I want to be my mother’s unpaid chauffeur for the rest of her life.” 

We also don’t want to take away the car keys because people with dementia love to ask questions again and again and again with “Why can’t I drive?” ranking among the Top Five. In the beginning the question feels like a light rain, then it starts to pour buckets and soon thereafter you're pelted to the point of torrential hail the size of Buicks. 

On the Forgetfulness Scale our Loved Ones are scoring somewhere near zero, yet they remember “car,” “keys,” “drive” and “Why can’t I?” By the 1,240,587th time, you just want to hand the keys over and say, “Go!” Madeline and her little classmates crossing at an intersection, be damned. But you don’t. 

You stay strong and eventually it stops. Only to be replaced with the patter-patter of, “Why do I have to stay in the nursing home?" But you're good with it because this isn't your first light-showers-turned-hurricane.