days and evenings and even nights outside. Got used to Dad watering and then sitting as he enjoyed nature ten feet from the house. The fence meant he was safe. Safe to wander in and out where he was as long he stayed in the garden. Short sleeves went to long sleeves and then to sweaters and jackets hinted it was almost their time. I felt it first. Then I saw it on Dad’s face.
He sat in his favorite spot in his favorite chair in his favorite room….and looked sad. Sad it was too cold to be outside. Sad there was nothing to water since the earth said it was time to rest. Sad that the birds headed elsewhere and took their song with them. Sad to sit and watch life through the windows.
There was lots I could have done. Bundled up and braved the weather. Settled in and welcomed the even colder that was on the way anyway. Comforted Dad with talk and platitudes. Wallowed there with him for a while. Lot of possibilities. Instead, I stood in the doorway and felt him. Felt his emotions, his state of being, and his life.
Mom was gone. He felt that every day. The garden was gone. He felt that right now and wondered how far away spring really was. He felts losses past and losses future. He felt the season closing in on him. He felt the routine that now included daily reminders of the war in pill form. He felt….alone.
Outside I went. For the first time, I moved Elmer. He came inside. Dad smiled when he saw his buddy and knew the two of them would wait for spring together. I hated that gnome. I loved my Father more. Love trumps everything….even hate. Even winter. Even Fuggeddaboudit. Love trumps. Elmer began to grow on me. No one should be left out in the cold.
Winter of Our Deep Content
That winter was the best ever. Mostly because nothing happened. Dad did not die. That didn’t happen that year. Dad did not get much worse. That happened later. The finances did not go from barely enough to how are we going to make it. Those cuts, the ones to the bone that drew blood, happened between that winter and thanks for the insurance payment, Dad. Nothing happened that winter. It was the best winter ever.
I learned how to do nothing and enjoy it. Dad and I did mostly nothing and it was better than anything cause we did it together. The clock became something we looked at rather than danced to. Days of reading and being and breakfast for dinner or not at all moved to other days of Godfather meets Scarface and heads to the Casino marathons. We left the holiday decorations up until February and the Lionel trains even longer.
The kids pretty much tended to themselves and I didn’t notice until later. I thanked them then and still do. Tom saw beyond what wasn’t and enjoyed the view. I didn’t care, he didn’t care that I didn’t, and that showed how much he really cared. Tom still gets random special desserts for the dinners I just didn’t even bother to make that winter. Dad and I were more like a couple. I fell into that like an old pair of shoes. Nothing felt wonderful that winter.
Five-hundred rummy. Dad only won when he cheated. I won every time we played. My reading voice became his sleeping pill at nap time. Tucked him in and read on without him. Started back up when he woke. Didn’t know if he missed stuff or just didn’t say he missed stuff. It didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter.
Nor did schedules or bills or medicines or anything else. What mattered was that he and I were together. Dad became my friend and I became his. Fuggeddaboudit brought us together and would rip us apart…that winter, we just were.
The snow came. We played in it only once. Snow angels. Snowman. Snowballs. All before the kids came home. They joined it. All before Tom came home. He joined in. Then we all had soup and hot chocolate and colds for three days. It didn’t matter. Winter came. We kissed it. We welcomed it. We watched it from a warm house with warm hearts and death seemed years away. Nothing happened that Winter. It was exactly what I needed cause a whole bunch of bad shit was about to happen. That Winter was the best of times. I wish it lasted longer. Glad it lasted as long as it did.
April Fool
The joke was on me. I thought we were doing well. Two years since the initial prognosis and we beat Fuggeddaboudit. Beat it by changing our lives totally. Held it at bay by our sheer will power. Things were going to be alright. Winter ended, spring came. The garden was back in work. I was hopeful. Things were good.
April First….a day of practical jokes. Well, har-de-har-har. That day was as far from funny as you can get and the joke was on me. It began innocently. Dad went to the garden to water. He was gone for a week. Oh, I found him in the garden. Less than an hour after he went outside. His body, that is. He was gone. I tried to forget that look in his eyes. It didn’t work. It still haunts me. The look of the clueless. The look of vacancy that rips hope apart and raspberries it down your throat. My Father looked at me like I was another species. Like he was another species.
Took him back into the house. Started the new routine. The routine that became checklist later but was adlib based on panic and heartbreak that first time. Step One-Calm him down and see if he comes back on his own. That lasted just over an hour. Meds. That was Step Two but blurred to Step Three, call the hotline, quickly that first time. I was still a novice to “how far gone is he this time?” and that whole concept. The Doctor said not to panic, wait and see, and to call him to let him know. He said to “wait and see how things turn out.” That was bullshit. Tom found the note on the table and called me at the hospital when he got home. He asked why I didn’t just call him on my cellular phone….the same cellular phone he just called me on. “Cause I was in panic, Tom. Excuse the hell out of me.” It might have been something stronger but that was pretty much in the ballpark. I was not at my best. After all, this was my first true wrestling match with Alzheimer’s. It won that first time. It had the home court advantage. I was new at this.
I know now the Doctor’s advice was right. Now. Not then. I was virgin then. They should have a virgin checklist. The checklist that said have her bring him in since she is going to bring him in anyway. The checklist that said appease her…this is the first of many so appease her. They should have had that checklist but they didn’t. I didn’t know the routine. The idea of routine emergency was unknown to me at the time. The idea that Dad would disappear in plain sight for days and even weeks at a time was foreign to me then. They should have had a checklist for virgins. They didn’t.
They admitted Dad for observation. They did not think it was necessary. I decided otherwise. They brought in the portable bed and Dad and I had a sleepover. A thousand dollar plus sleepover that was overpriced as well as overkill. Virgins are like that. We expect things to be special. We are not used to being screwed at random times and waiting to see how things turn out.
Dad came back over a week later. No word for over a week. No knowledge of where he went. No postcards from the edge. The first words out of his mouth were, “What’s for dinner?” Men!
The Worst Of Times
That was just the beginning. The beginning of the end. The end was almost four years away…yet death came and stayed on April Fool’s Day. From then on, death was a moment away each minute of every hour of every day right up until it left….with my father. That is the insidious nature of Fuggeddaboudit. Dad’s first big bout jolted me back to reality. Real reality. For two years I accepted reality and really did not have a clue what reality was. April Fool’s Day said here I am. The next year sucked.
I was alone. No one else knew. No one else understood. No one else could possible understand. Who can imagine the darkness? The shame. Who could understand how low I fell? That year I began to pray. Truly pray. That year, I prayed for my father to die.
The loving daughter prayed to a God that abandoned her to end her father’s life. On my knees, in my heart, I prayed. First for healing. Then for a miracle. In time, my prayers were more realistic. I prayed for him to die. End his pain. My pain. Our pain. It disgusted me. It shamed me. What daughter prays for h
er father’s death? How could I? Yet it happened. Inside. Alone. In my hell, I prayed for him to die so I could get on with life. My smile went from fake to non-existent. I hated life because death arrived.
Every day was a crapshoot. I couldn’t sleep, hated to wake up, and dreaded the unknown of every single moment. Couldn’t make a difference, tried to make a difference, and failed to make a difference. Thought tomorrow would be different and tomorrow was even worse.
Doctors were clueless. I wished the illness on their loved ones. Maybe then they would have passion instead of platitudes and more pills.
News angered me. The world was broken and went right on spinning. The richest nation in the world spent more on war than healing. We killed for oil and paid with youth. We wasted our future while our past withered, alone, and underfunded.
For two years I deluded myself. Believed there was hope. Thought we had a chance. The joke really was on me. Now reality came home to roost. I was alone. With my dirty secret. I wasted my lessening moments with Dad angry over my lessening moments with Dad. No one would understand. I was absolutely and utterly alone. Right up until I found out I had company. Lots of it. I