Five and ten years

Ten years ago last Thursday, I was in our new house, still surrounded by boxes and half-done home improvements, when I got a phone call in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday. It was one of my mother's best friends, telling me that my parents had gotten in a car accident driving home from South Dakota.

Five years ago tonight, I got a phone call from my mother telling me my father had died. The end of July has historically not been kind to my family.

There's a psychologist with a weekly program on our local NPR station who's quadriplegic after a highway accident where a wheel came off of a semi and came through his windshield. He says the last thing he saw was a big black thing coming out of the sky onto him. As a psychologist, he said he's found that most people have a moment like that, where something huge comes out of the sky and changes life forever. By my mother's accident, we had been getting a steady rain of tires between dying grandparents, health problems and my father's diagnosis. But the accident was the really life changing, derailing event. I went from your typical young adult in my mid-twenties who didn't have to worry about much more than myself and my husband to giving up plans for a second Master's degree so I could take care of my parents. I don't think I have to explain what it was like to lose a beloved father to a terrible disease.

And yet, five and ten years later, life has gone on. My mother lives her life with the help of aides, and has traveled all over the world. I hate how condescending much of the language people use surrounding disability, so I recoil from adjectives like "heroic" or "inspiring," but I do admire her adventurousness and her willingness to travel despite the difficulties. Similarly, I go through my days pretty normally and spent today dealing with one kid getting over sickness, another starting to get sick and a lack of water from the water main break last night (it sent water shooting over the top of three story houses - pretty cool).

I'm not sure exactly what my point is here, except that I miss my father and I worry about my mother. Disaster rains down on us and somehow we keep limping along.



I miss you Dad. I wish you could have met your grandsons. They both look like you.

Difficult questions

"Grammie can't walk."

"No, she can't. That's why she uses a wheelchair."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes. And her hands don't work very well either, which is why she has Lisa to take care of her."

"Oh." Pause for thought. "Lisa made me eggs."

***

I've been wondering for a long time how old K would be when she would start to see that my mother is different from her other grandmother, and different from most people. I guess the answer is four. We had the above conversation yesterday when I was telling her that my mother and her aide were arriving today. Several months ago, she drew a picture of my mother and included her wheelchair, but I wasn't sure if she realized what the wheelchair meant or if it was just something she saw as part of my mother.

We haven't gotten to why Grammie can't walk yet, and I'm not inclined to offer the information until she asks, hopefully not for a couple years. I'm not eager to introduce the idea that driving in a car can be very dangerous and leave you permanently injured. At her age, it could completely roll across her back, like when she asked what a building was today and I said, "It's a funeral home," which she shrugged off without a thought. Or it could result in terror of the car until she's old enough to be able to put fears and dangers in more perspective.

Was I ready for the conversation about what a funeral home is for? Kind of. I've actually been trying to introduce death a little bit, though I'm not going to push it until she starts asking questions on her own. But another thing I've been waiting for is when she starts asking why she has one grandfather she can spend time with and another that she only sees in pictures. When we look at pictures, I always point my father out to her and tell her who he is, but while she knows him, she hasn't asked yet about where he is.

I know a lot of parents get nervous about the idea of the sex talk, but it never bothered me. I brought a couple books home when I got pregnant, and have used diaper changes as an opportunity for basic anatomy lessons. Right now, it's just anatomy. It's definitely nothing compared to some of the conversations I know we'll be having over the next few years about some of the other facts of life, and death.

Still here

I never mean to go so long between posting. I usually just get caught up in the mundanity and busyness of existence. In this case, I've been dealing with some last Ebay orders, going through training for the new job and fretting about same training, which seems to take up more time than the training itself. This fretting isn't necessarily justified; my actually starting this job does depend on my performing well enough on the final assignment, but my performance on my homework so far indicates that I shouldn't have a problem with that. I just tend to panic a little when I suddenly experience being judged on my performance if it hasn't happened for a while.

So I'm attempting to chill, while still putting the necessary amount of work in. And I think I'm just feeling a bit quiet at the moment. I don't have a great history with the month of July, between my mother's car accident and my father's death. I'm not lying on the couch mired in the deepest depths of despondency, but it contributes to my feeling the need to retreat, my main defense mechanism in times of stress. I'm just curled up in my little mousehole, Shy Sheldon stuck in my shell, waiting for this month to be over.

In completely unrelated news, I lightly bopped K over the head with some plastic flowers tonight. She looked indignant and said, while rubbing her head, "Stop hitting my head." Only in her three-year-old pronunciation, it came out "Stop hittin' mah haid."

My child speaks lolcat. I'm not sure what to think about this.

Bad attitude

Unlike many infertiles, Mother's Day never bothered me much when we were trying to conceive. I wanted a baby, but the concept of actually having one and being a mother was so abstract to me that things that trigger many infertiles didn't affect me that much.

But now I know exactly how they feel. Because if I see one more article today on how to honor your father on Father's Day, or great Father's Day gifts for Dad, or creative gifts to make for your completely alive, non-dead father, I think I might hurl. Or maybe just hurl my computer at the wall.

I had been doing better when Spring came. But then we went home and cleaned out my parents' house, and now we're coming up on one year since my father died. I keep finding myself looking at the pictures of him holding K, and thinking about how much he would appreciate that her developing sense of humor is so much like his. So yeah, Father's Day? Not the kick in the stomach I needed right now.

We're the uninvited loud precision band

I got K a book the other night which has a two-piece jigsaw puzzle on each page. She's been ready for puzzles more complicated than one piece for a while, but it seems like most puzzles seem to leap from one piece directly up to eight, and I don't think she's quite ready for that (although she's doing incredibly well with shape matching these days, so she might be up to it). So this book seemed like a nice intermediate step.

It's a big hit. She'll go through and pull out all the pieces, and then pick up a piece, open the book and say, "Does it go here? Noooooo. Here? YES!"

And then you hear the thud of her parents dying of cute.

*****

I talked to my mother the other night and learned two things:

1. My cousin is getting married in Colorado this July, so she suggested that my brother and I go out with her. It's blowing my mind a bit, that the cousin who was a tiny baby at our family reunion in 1984 is getting married. Isn't she still a baby?

I'm looking forward to seeing that side of the family. I haven't seen most of them since, lordy, 2001. I'll get to see my favorite great aunt, Aunt Doris, who is just about the nicest great-aunt ever. She's 90 and still going strong. I'm looking forward to introducing K to her.

Part of why we're all going out is so we can spread Dad's ashes. He spent part of his growing up years in Colorado and he's always loved the mountains there. My uncle will be able to join us as well if we do it there. He said that he should be able to find us a back road to some out of the way place where we can scatter the ashes without running afoul of the law. The thought of going someplace like Estes Park is nice, but we don't want some friendly ranger wandering up to find out what we're doing.

"Oh, just spreading human remains, sir!"
"Yes, this is my husband. We're throwing him off a cliff."

2. My mother is contemplating buying a condo. It makes sense. One person doesn't really need a five bedroom house, especially since she can't get into half of it. She wouldn't have to worry about hiring people to plow in the winter and take care of the yard in the summer.

I can't say it's not a wrench to think about losing my childhood home, though. And the thought of shoveling out that basement - ai-yi-yi. Pardon me while I curl up in the fetal position here for a while. Thank goodness my brother and I have been progressively working over the years to chip away at Stuff Mountain when we're home for the holidays.

I'd like to pout about this, but it turns out I'm too mature to demand that my mother stay in a house that's too big for her just for my sake. Adulthood is inconvenient sometimes.

*****

I have to say this very quietly, in case K hears me and decides to never sleep again in a fit of toddler contrariness: bedtime hasn't been too bad for the past several days. Friday, K fell asleep early, woke up around ten and stayed awake for a while, but was clearly sleepy and content to stay in bed until she drifted back off on her own. Last night, she played quietly in her room after I put her down and was asleep by 9:30, then proceeded to sleep until nearly 9 this morning. Tonight, well, she was still awake when I went upstairs 20 minutes ago. But she's quiet and in her room. I really can't ask for anything more.

Do I dare hope that the nighttime chaos is coming to an end? Or have I just cursed us to seven more years of bad sleep?

Six months today

since my father died.

It's amazing how quickly and slowly six months can go by. It's no longer the all-encompassing oppressive presence, overwhelming me and making it impossible to concentrate on anything. It has its moments, but most days I'm functional with a layer of sadness in the background. Kind of like trading a coat of thorns for a hair shirt, I suppose.

I love you Dad, and I miss you every day.

Grey

I got a call from a friend tonight asking how I'm doing, and I think the best answer is that life is just rather grey right now. I'm going about my life with a decent amount of success, but everything is muted like there's something sitting on me, oppressing my reactions.

It surprised me a little, when I was home. At the funeral, we spent our time talking about my father before he got sick and I mostly spent my time thinking about how much I missed that man. But I discovered when I was home this last trip that I just plain missed my father, even the way he was after he got sick. As hard as it was to watch him decline, we were lucky in that until the very end he was pretty pleasant to have around. He was very sweet and gentle, and able to give and receive affection. He loved to sit and have me talk to him even after he couldn't speak well and he got huge enjoyment out of watching K play. I miss that man too and the house felt very empty without him.

I think grief is a lot like a cloudy day. Sometimes it rains on you and makes it hard to go about your daily business. Sometimes it hits you with a gale-force hurricane and stops you cold. But even when you're functioning fine, it's always there, hanging over everything you do and hard to ignore.

Grey

I got a call from a friend tonight asking how I'm doing, and I think the best answer is that life is just rather grey right now. I'm going about my life with a decent amount of success, but everything is muted like there's something sitting on me, oppressing my reactions.

It surprised me a little, when I was home. At the funeral, we spent our time talking about my father before he got sick and I mostly spent my time thinking about how much I missed that man. But I discovered when I was home this last trip that I just plain missed my father, even the way he was after he got sick. As hard as it was to watch him decline, we were lucky in that until the very end he was pretty pleasant to have around. He was very sweet and gentle, and able to give and receive affection. He loved to sit and have me talk to him even after he couldn't speak well and he got huge enjoyment out of watching K play. I miss that man too and the house felt very empty without him.

I think grief is a lot like a cloudy day. Sometimes it rains on you and makes it hard to go about your daily business. Sometimes it hits you with a gale-force hurricane and stops you cold. But even when you're functioning fine, it's always there, hanging over everything you do and hard to ignore.

The not-so-cheerful post

N.B. Since several people on my friend's list have been added since the last time I wrote much about my parents, here is some background: both of my parents have been seriously disabled for the past 5-6 years. My father has Alzheimer's disease, diagnosed in 2001 although he was having enough symptoms to make him stop teaching in 2000. My mother was injured in a car accident in 2002 and is quadriplegic, although she has some movement in all of her limbs and can walk short distances with a walker. She has full-time nursing care.
****

I talked to my mother on Easter, and she told me that my father is really going downhill. I had certainly noticed over the past year and a half that it seemed to be going faster; it used to be that I would notice from Christmas to Christmas that he had lost ground, and last year I noticed a significant change between Christmas and Easter. And by this past Christmas, it was clearly accelerating. Mom had had to hire an aide to get him dressed and fed in the morning because he needed too much help for Mom's aide to be able to take care of Mom and help him out (Mom's aides are only supposed to take care of Mom, but they all help Dad in minor ways). He could barely speak because he can't find words any more. And this past summer, he forgot his first relative when he couldn't recognize my cousin, his niece whom he had known since she was a baby. And now Mom says things are worse. She's decided they can't travel any more because it's too confusing for him, and because he needs too much help for the aide who travels with them to be able to take care of Mom and him. He can't go to the bathroom alone, because you can never be sure where he might pee. He's getting restless at night, which is a classic Alzheimer's symptom.

Things are bad enough that I decided to fly out to Michigan next month because I'm afraid if I wait until we go out in August, he won't know me any more.

That was just a hideous sentence to write. I find it's easier to think about my father dying than it is to think about him not knowing me any more. When he was first diagnosed, I found myself wishing he would get cancer, or have a heart attack or anything that would kill him quickly before his mind went. That passed as time went on and I learned to appreciate the time we had left together. But now I'm back there again. I'm torn between not wanting him to get any worse, and wanting things to go as fast as possible so we don't have to live in a limbo where his body is present but his mind is completely gone.

***

A while ago, my mother was teaching a class on grief, and she asked me what my reaction was when she had first told me about Dad's memory problems. My response was denial, complete and utter to the point that it was genuinely a shock to me when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's because I had refused to let myself think of it as a possibility. And when he was diagnosed, it was like the world came crashing down, taking my nice little denial cocoon along with it. For a couple weeks, I reacted in many ways like he was already dead, getting very depressed and unable to think about anything except that my father was going to die, and in one of the most horrible ways I could think of.

But then I had a couple good conversations with him, and I realized that he was still alive, and still very much himself, so I had better appreciate it while I could. And at that point, it was pretty easy. He was losing ground in little things, but he could still take care of himself and carry on a good conversation. He even did yardwork. The fall I spent living with him while Mom was in the hospital, I took weekend trips home without much worry, although I was relieved to have the excuse of Mom needing a van to get him to stop driving. And while I would give quite a lot for Mom to never have had her accident, I'm grateful that I got that fall with Dad, while he was still doing pretty well. For a long time, it was like that. He was clearly losing ground, losing the ability to read and write, and to work mechanical things. But his personality was the same and he knew us. He even still had his sense of humor. I felt really lucky, because many Alzheimers patients develop very short tempers out of frustration. But Dad has always had a very sweet and gentle personality, and he seemed to accept his declining abilities with a calm grace.

And then last January, Mom told me that he was going into the basement and getting upset because he was convinced people were stealing from them. Paranoia is a common symptom of Alzheimer's, but it hit me a lot harder than any of his other losses. And it wasn't hard to realize why: as hard as it was to watch him lose ground, none of what was happening to him was any of the really unattractive symptoms, or changed his personality, which made it relatively easy to think that things weren't so bad. Hello again, denial. Apparently you've been with me all this time. Paranoia is a symptom that makes denial impossible. It says that yes, Alzheimer's really is that bad, and it's only going to get worse.

And since then, it's been with me, that acute knowledge that it's a steep downhill fall from here. I had to acknowledge at Christmas that it was probably the last one where he would be aware enough to appreciate it and participate. And the thoughts about his final illness and death, the practical ones like whether to put him in a nursing facility and planning his funeral, are leaving the theoretical and becoming things we really need to deal with.

The future I have been dreading is here, and it really sucks.

Edited to add: As it turns out, this was the start of my father going very rapidly downhill, and he died on July 30, 2007.