Too late. My hopes were up. Screw the milk shakes. Damn the dishes. My hopes were up. For one brief shining moment, my hopes were up. On this ride until they die thing, hopes up are to be celebrated. Mine were up. I was about to sneak up on Fuggeddaboudit and wake my father up so he could be him.
Thought about the dishes and was ready. Realized there was an easier way. A pinch. A good pinch to wake him from his nap.
I sat next to him on the couch and planned my attack. He looked so peaceful. So rested. Seemed wrong to disturb him. Seemed better to let him have his rest. Maybe he would just wake up as him. Maybe he would wake up and everything would be alright. Maybe I shouldn’t disturb him. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe this was cruel. I waived. Then I remembered the diapers and I pinched him. Hard. Really hard. Wake the dead hard. Harder than I should have, not as hard as I wanted, and just as hard as I could. It worked.
“Huh! OW! What the hell?” He looked at me in shock. “What the hell did you do that for, Mally???” He rubbed his leg where I pinched.
I wanted to explain. Wanted to apologize. Wanted to share how wonderful it was to have this victory over something that won everything else day after day since it arrived. Wanted to tell him all of that. Instead, I cried. I held him and cried. Cried that I could win sometimes. Cried over spilt milk shakes and loved life. Loved life for a moment. That was enough.
Yes, I did wake him with a pinch every day after that. Well, almost every day. More often than not. Moved the spots. The goal was to beat the disease, not the victim. It worked for a long time. I pinched Dad from slumber and he woke up right where he was. He knew me. He stayed with me. It worked better than the pills and any other let’s try this and see what it does for the bottom line crap that was foisted on us. It was a pinch of sanity and a dose of victory in a war that finally felt a little less over.
Medical Marijuana
Three years blurred. I tried to remember them and somehow it was homogenized. A big ball of fragments. Dad lost a few more pieces of himself each day. Our lives became a jigsaw puzzle……with a fuzzy picture.
There is a routine to Fuggeddaboudit. I guess that is true of any slow devastation. The kids accepted Dad as he was and then was not. I took care of Dad. Tom took care of life. My world became Dad-centric…..and I was blessed by a family that understood and allowed it.
Jason became the one place free of Dad. He came to the house and tended what he called his Buddy. When it came time for me, Fridays at three o-clock, Jason insisted I came to his place. The session lasted two hours on the average and were enough to keep me sane. In the beginning, the sessions were about Dad and the ways I might help him.
Jason opened doors of possibilities for me. Homeopathic healing. Energy work. Diet. So many options. I read things suggested, researched more and more websites, and contacted folks recommended by Jason. The Magic Man tended me and gave me hope. I left each session comforted and armed with more possibilities. As things progressed, perhaps deteriorated is the right term, the sessions became about me. The shift began with my research into medical marijuana.
Wanted to find it….especially after what I called the Movie Incident. Dad and I attended a matinee as was our routine. I left in the middle of the movie to use the rest room. Dad was engrossed in the movie and seemed alright. Plus, I would be back in a flash. At least, that was the plan.
It seemed fast. When I got back to the seat, Dad was gone. I looked around and wondered if it was the wrong row. Maybe the wrong theater. Those multiplex cubicle theaters all looked alike. Then I called out for him. A few shhh’s followed. They heard my reply very clearly. “Shish this, Asshole! DAD! Where are you, Dad?”
The folks outside Theater 6 had not seen him, so I popped into 7 and then 5 and then had the staffing looking in each one. I headed out to the door where we entered. Maybe Dad headed for the car. Maybe he thought I left him. He usually didn’t even bother paying attention to where we parked. Not sure if he could anymore.
Was running towards the door, when a security guard called me. He had to call loud to get my attention. I turned quickly and knew he saw the panic on my face.
“Ma’am, are you looking for your father?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I think we have him right over her, Ma’am.”
They did have him. Popcorn in hand, Dad was sitting on a bench by Sears and another security guard was comforting him. He was crying. Big sobs. I joined him.
Once we settled down, me first this time, he held onto me like a lost child that just found his way home. “Why’d you leave me, Mal?”
“Why’d you leave me?”
That night I began the search for medical marijuana. Mentioned it to Jason two days later in session.
He took it in stride and then asked me, “Do you think it will help your Dad?”
“It’s not for Dad. It’s for me.”
From then on, my sessions with Jason were about me. For two hours each week, it was all about me. Thanks, Jason.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
I wanted it to be over for most of the rest of Dad’s life. Didn’t want to talk about it in the bank when the teller looked at me and registered sympathy. Was it the very feel of me? Was I that pitiful? Dad was gone from public view for most of the last years. He was that man being taken care of by his family. Neighbors stopped by for a while and then they didn’t. Quite frankly, I didn’t blame them. Well, maybe I did. But that was about me. I resented they had that option.
The option to quit and just wait from the final report. The option to sigh now and then in sympathy and live your life. I didn’t have that option. Not even on the few times I got away from the slow quicksand that was killing my father. Everywhere I went, it became all about death, dying, and life in the abyss known as “Alzheimer’s’ in da house.”
Grocery shopping and ambushed by the bananas by long time no seers. Three sentences was the record. Three sentences before everything shifted to Dad and his demise.
They meant well. I was polite. Inside it broke my heart. I wanted to talk about anything else. News. Weather. Car troubles. Scandals. Soap Operas. The price of tea in China. Dad always asked me what something had to do with the price of Tea in China. I wanted to talk about the price of tea in China. How they grew it. How they exported it. How much went to Tetley….if any went to Tetley……where Tetley got their tea if not from China…if Tetley shipped tea into China. If they drank tea from China in China. Tea was important. Please talk about tea. Please talk about tea. Please talk about…..but it was Dad before the third sentence each and every time.
Sometimes I didn’t want to be polite. Sometimes I wanted to scream and hit them over the head with the bananas that Dad might or might not know he ate a week from now. Please don’t ask me. Please. I don’t want to tell because I just might tell the truth and the truth was seeping with desperation and tainted by sitting too long when hope went cold and life was far from sweet.
Spinning Wheels
The years merged. Time flew. We had things to hold us. Things to help us find the joy as the pain and disappointment increased. It was a time of mixed blessings. Each thing that helped me also showed how much Dad deteriorated. We welcomed the Garden and then he was less and less able to enjoy it. His best of times became flashes that moved too quickly from our reality. His worst of times increased. In between, we had something new. We had echoes.
The routine was as important for all of us around Dad as it was for Dad. We moved in ever diminishing circles of sameness. Routine was our touchstone. A stone of calibration and sanity. Routine was comforting even as Dad was less and less a part of it as minutes turned to years and years to minutes. Less than five minutes since we adjusted to Fuggeddaboudit, Dad really died.
Along the way, he was there and not there. For him, it looked alright actually. Harmless. Clueless. Unaware.
Me? I felt sad when he was like this and he was like this more and more. Those are the times that drained me the most I think. It helped to keep busy. It helped me to work in the garden while Dad sat on the bench. He was in La-La Land and would return if and when he could. Life went on around him. As best it could.
That is when the passing of time was a countdown. That is when the things that used to be with him merely filled the time. That is when I hated the whole process. Moving about in sadness sucked me dry.
Still, there were moments when he was there and I clung to each one as each one become rarer and rarer.
Dad felt it too. In his way. Sometimes Dad did not know what was going on. Sometimes Dad did. When he thought hard about it, he hated it. Hated life. Hated that he knew days were missing and more would be soon. That is when my father was something I had not witnessed prior. That is when my father was weak. He was human and frail and angry. When he was angry, he sulked and wanted nothing to do with anyone, me included. We hid the Easter Eggs. He said, “Find them yourselves. You better get used to it.” He had his moments about it just like we all did. Acceptance is one thing. Denial is something a lot different.
Our arsenal held up pretty well against an enemy declared as ultimate. Bodywork. Routine. Pinches from sleep. Vegetarian