At The Place Where I Go

At The Place Where I Go

My father sure would like to come home.

It is a simple request.  It is not possible to honor.

Home, we have fiqured out no longer means an address.  It is a feeling.  It is a place in his soul where he was capable and productive and whole.

But we don’t talk about it like that.  We try not to think about it like that.  We all just try to breathe over the top of this pain.

In the daylight, it is possible to arm ourselves with the logic of this decision.  We hold up the shield of popular and professional opinion that is clearly on our side.

We didn’t cause this you know.  We have done all that we could do, we know.

He needs to be where they can keep him safe; where they can keep him from falling; where they can handle him.  After all, the last time we brought him home, he fell and it took both kids and me to get him up again and he just sat and slept the whole time anyway and said he had to go back and wouldn’t even watch Jeopardy or the bowling and didn’t even talk to Mom, so what’s the point of going through all that except, of course, for holidays.  Certainly we will bring him home for Easter because we are all off that day and J.R. will probably be here and we can manage it better then.

But in the night, in the dark and the quiet and without the cloak of my logic and busyness, the cold thought is that he would have never left me to be afraid or confused or alone.

He is 90, but if you ask him, he’ll say he is 82.  Last year he used to say 87.  Alzheimer’s, the Fountain of Youth.  Correct him and he shakes his head in that “can’t be” kind of way which makes us laugh. 

Humor is at a premium these days.

He is in a wheelchair.

It has this nifty little alarm so they will know if he tries to get up alone.  He always tries to get up alone.  He is not convinced he needs any help even though he has fallen so many times and hasn’t walked even with a walker in months and the last time he managed to get himself dressed he had no underwear on (but he did have a hospital gown on under his sweatshirt) and no shoes and socks that were bloody from some wound on his big toe which he didn’t feel and didn’t know how he got and the pants and shirt were the same pants and shirt I dressed him in 3 days before when I did bring him home and he had that “accident” of incontinence which, of course, he certainly doesn’t remember now.

And so, he needs to be warehoused because anyone and everyone can see how necessary it’s become that he is watched.

But none of that seems to be enough to keep me from crumbling when I hear the theme from Titanic about the heart going on and on or the song about butterfly kisses and I sit sobbing in my car in the driveway and saying “I’m sorry Dad….I am so sorry.”

My father could always fix things.  He built buildings and shopping malls.

Now he is the king down in occupational therapy.

He is polite and cooperative his assessments state.  The therapists are “amazed” at the designs and the detail he can still do, even with shaking hands and poor eyesight.  He tells us how nice they all are (he doesn’t know their names).  He plays Pokeno and Bingo and he wins candy bars from the activity staff.  They all like him he says and besides the food is pretty good although he never really can remember what he had for lunch unless I go look and tell him he had baked chicken. He is busier here and eating better without the dogs at his knee to throw his food to.  He has his meals at Table #2 on the seating chart.

What he doesn’t do is eat his meals withhis wife of 64 years.  What he also doesn’t do is cut the grapefruit at breakfast or help do the dishes or break up the empty cereal boxes so they fit better in the garbage bag and you don’t need as many.  He doesn’t hand her the sections of the newspaper anymore over tea.  And he doesn’t know that.

He knows his grandaughter works here.  He isn’t sure which nights she is suppose to come so he waits to see about that, but he knows she works all day on Saturdays and Sundays so he asks everyday if that day is one of those days.

He knows his grandson works somewhere too, but he never asks if Ryan is coming.  He just assumes he will come when he can.

He’s been told that Mom and I come every other day, but sometimes it doesn’t seem that way, so he has the nurse at the station call to check on our last or our next visit and once when it seemed like we had not been there for the longest time, he called Mom to say that he had to get out of there and if she won’t do something about that or if she doesn’t want him home with her anymore, then he will call the union or the Seabees or the American Legion.

He never belonged to the American Legion, but he is pretty sure they will get him out of there anyway.

When we do visit (every other day), I am greeted with “Well, there’s the boss now” and eyes that tell me I am the one to blame before they focus tenderness and love on my mother.  I know he doesn’t know how hard this being hard is for me.  He cannot realize how terrifying the fall from Joy of his life to bane of his existence has been.

I wrote poems about my father. 

At the time I wrote those, there was still hope.  Hope that before his end or mine I would have more from him and he from me.  But now, even as his outline fades, that hope fades with it.  I will know no more than I have always known.

They are wrong.  You can miss what you have never had.

It is not all about profound grief.  This long goodbye means more time for emotions and some of those are not as admirable as grief.  I don’t want and am not prepared to be the parent of my parent.

I would pray if I knew what to pray for.

I cannot pray for recovery because there is no cure for being 90 years old; never mind the Alzheimer’s.

I cannot pray for his death because he still so desperately wants to live.

I cannot pray for him to accept this current living arrangement because that is the day he will finally give up and I cannot pray that he gives up because his fight to “get better” is all he has.

He tries so hard.  He tries so in vain.

Once I suggested that we make some sort of plan for this type of situation.  He told me back then that I should not worry.  He planned to have a nice quick heart attack.  He lied.  He lied.  He lied. My father never lied to me before.

This is not all about me.  This is not all about me.