November 2, 2012 · 6:11 pm

The grief process

The home health care agency asked Mom this week if she wanted to join a widow’s group. Mom balked at the idea: “A bunch of women sitting around and telling sad stories. I think that would make me feel worse.”

Yet Mom will tell a stranger at the drop of the hat about Dad’s passing, how he had dementia, how she took care of him at home for three years, etc. The group might have done her good, at least she would have a captive audience to talk to. But I know better than to push her.

But now as the calendar inches closer and closer to the first anniversary of Dad’s death, I’m fascinated by the various ways we grieve as humans. Honestly, considering what I’ve been dealing with this year, I don’t even feel I’ve had time to properly grieve Dad. For me, it’s a much more internal process, and my outward grieving is done through this blog.

If Dad had outlived Mom, I think he would have been a lost soul. I think I would have arranged to have him fly home to Ireland, to live with his remaining family there. I don’t think he would have been able to “fly solo” as Mom has done.

Grief is never easy, but we all have our own ways of processing our feelings about the loss of a loved one.

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November 1, 2012 · 6:17 pm

Dad’s take on the hospital breakfast menu

As we roll into November, I can’t help but think about this time last year, and how the beginning of the end was about to start for Dad. But November 2010 also included a hospital stay. Dad had a gallstone removed and was recovering pretty well in a hospital in Albuquerque. He was about mid-stage in his dementia journey at this point.

Getting Dad to eat was difficult. He could still swallow just fine at this point, but the hospital food was just not appealing to him. Mom would coax and wheedle and he would eat a few bites, but that was all. While in the hospital, he became more frail due to losing weight and being bedridden. This led to his transfer to a nursing home, and his inability to ever live at home again.

But one morning at the hospital, Dad was a bit perkier. A male attendant came in to take his breakfast order. The options for the morning were rattled off: scrambled eggs, cereal or French toast.

Dad didn’t miss a beat. He asked, “Does it speak French?”

The attendant and Mom had a good laugh over that one. Dad got the French toast, and if it spoke to him, only he knew about it.

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October 31, 2012 · 5:45 pm

Halloween still my favorite holiday

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I love scary movies and even enjoy the decorations, while other holidays mainly annoy me. But it is a bit unsettling after you’ve lost someone close to you and you see so many “fun and festive” references to the dead (and the undead.) I thought after losing Dad, and then almost losing Mom this summer, that I might sour on the whole holiday.

While I certainly was careful not to pick out a card with R.I.P. written on a gravestone for my mom (not an easy feat), I find I can still enjoy the festive spirit of the holiday. The dead are gone and far beyond our trivial celebrations here on earth, so there’s no reason to feel guilty about enjoying the staged horrors of Halloween, if that’s your cup of tea.

I think after dealing with so much death and misery over this past year, I was afraid that Halloween would be the last holiday I would want to celebrate. But I find that I can still enjoy the ghoulish fun that the holiday offers. Sometimes, brief escapes from reality are just what the doctor ordered.

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October 30, 2012 · 7:25 pm

Awkward Halloween drive to school

I remember one year while I was in junior high, I decided to dress up as a punk rocker for Halloween. It was a very common costume for that era. It didn’t require much. Some torn clothes, a sprinkling of tacky jewelry and a can of spray paint designed for use on the hair, and you were ready to go. I was always shy about dressing up as anything too weird for Halloween. This was a good compromise.

I’m sure to Dad, I might as well have been dressed up as a space alien. I’m sure he had no understanding of the punk rock movement, as he was more of a Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby kind of guy. I remember him looking at me quite oddly as he got in the car to drive me to school. Mom thought it was fun and colorful. Dad just thought it was nuts!

I was relieved to be able to walk back home from school that Dad, so I could dodge Dad’s critical eye. After that year, I had pretty much grown out of dressing up for Halloween. I don’t remember ever putting on another Halloween costume.

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October 29, 2012 · 6:27 pm

Reminders of Dad as the season changes

Last week, I was at Mom’s and there was a cold snap. I did not pack a jacket from home, so I started going through Dad’s jackets to see if one was suitable. Dad’s security guard jacket still hangs in the closet, like he would put it on for a round of sentry duty at any moment. His trucking company jackets were also in there. They must be at least 30 years old. They are a bright orange, so I declined to wear one of those, as I didn’t want to look like a hazard cone.

Dad at a friend’s house, circa 1975, wearing the famous purple shirt.

It’s funny how reminders of Dad continue to flow into my mind with the change of seasons. There’s a great singer named Martha Wainwright who just released an album called Come Home to Mama that explores the emotions she went through after her mother, the wonderful Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle died. The whole album is wonderful, but “All Your Clothes,” a song inspired by her going through her mother’s closet after her death is particularly moving. Sure, memories are more important than tangible goods, but there is also often a deep connection between tangible goods and family memories.

What I didn’t find was Dad’s groovy purple shirt that he wore in so many of our family photos when I was a baby. That would be a keeper!

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October 28, 2012 · 6:11 pm

Dad’s wanderlust years

On the way to the airport this morning, I was talking to the cab driver, who was once a surgical nurse. She got burned out on her job and wanted to see more of the world. She said she encouraged her kids to also explore beyond the small town they were raised in.

Dad certainly had a wanderlust gene, as does Mom. Dad traveled from Northern Ireland to England to the U.S. While in America, he lived in several colorful cities: New York City, New Orleans and Los Angeles. His travels certainly influenced his life, and location played a big part in most of his best stories about his life.

I’ve had a lot of time this summer to listen to mom relate stories from her past, her travels, her stint in the Navy. I’m trying to keep better record of her stories than I did for Dad. With Dad, the mental decline seemed slow, until it wasn’t, and he was no longer able to recall the highlights of his life.

After all, if Dad had decided to never leave Belfast, he almost certainly would never have met Mom, and I would not be here either.

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October 27, 2012 · 6:42 pm

Dad’s tumble down the stairs

Decades before Dad developed dementia and started suffering from falls, he had a tumble down the stairs that I remember fairly clearly. In this case, another “d” word was responsible for Dad’s unsteadiness: drink.

Dad always enjoyed a couple of beers to unwind after his swing shift. There was a period when I was a small child that Dad overindulged. But after that, it was a couple of beers and that was it. I never saw him drunk as I got older, except for this one occasion that led to the fall down the stairs. I was probably a pre-teen at the time. I never did find out what caused the overindulgence that night. Did he have a bad day on the job? Did he get into a fight with Mom?

All I remember was hearing a loud crash and bolting out of bed. Turning on the lights to illuminate the stairwell, I saw Dad’s crumpled form at the bottom, trying to get up and steady himself. Mom came rushing out of their bedroom, and the two of us helped him up the stairs.

At the time, I was mildly disgusted and annoyed at being awaken in the middle of the night because my dad was inebriated. I never remember another incident like this happening.

Not until the dementia happened. Then Mom and I were once again by Dad’s side, supporting him when his body and mind could no longer support him.

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October 26, 2012 · 8:02 pm

“Your mother is driving me crazy”

If you have been following my blog over the past few months (which I greatly appreciate by the way) you know I have been serving as a caregiver for my mother, who was diagnosed with colon cancer. She has made great strides in her recovery. Tomorrow, I’m going home for hopefully a three-week respite until the week of Thanksgiving. I know there are caregivers that never get a respite for years while caring for family members, so I am indeed grateful.

That said, Mom and I are like oil and water. Mom is an extrovert to the extreme; I’m an introvert to the extreme. We were never meant to live together for an extended period of time as adults. I’m a very independent person that, at 38 years old, balks at the idea of my mother telling me what and when to eat, what to wear and how to act. Mom was used to having my Dad to cater to for 40 years, and he was extremely dependent upon her. The man could not have made a cup of coffee for himself. Their relationship was a sign of the times, where the man worked outside of the home, and the woman was the queen of all things domestic.

I know it has been hard for Mom to adjust to losing a great deal of the personal control she had over her domestic life. However, as caregivers know, that doesn’t mean you allow yourself to be bullied. Setting boundaries is a very important step for caregivers, and I have stuck to mine, even if Mom has been displeased with having to deal with her adult daughter versus the little girl that she forever sees in her mind.

So bottom line, neither Mom or I are saints. We get on each other’s nerves, and that’s just the way it is. But through the most difficult of times, I have thought about one of the last sane things Dad said to me, as I was departing from a brief holiday visit a few years ago. I couldn’t wait to get away, back to my life. I told Dad to take care. Dad said, “Your mother is driving me crazy.”

Now, I’m not blaming Dad’s dementia on Mom’s control freak ways. As I said, Dad was very dependent upon Mom, long before the Alzheimer’s set in. But living with my mom these past two months does give me a better appreciation of what Dad experienced. I think Dad was much better at tuning out and letting things just roll of of him than I am.

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October 25, 2012 · 7:59 pm

Holidays without Dad

This is the time of year where families start planning their holiday agendas. Who will go to who’s house on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For me, this time of year only makes me think about how the beginning of the worst period of my life began Thanksgiving week.

Of course, though I’m the ultimate pessimist, even I did not predict that Mom would end up with colon cancer six months after Dad passed. Or that I would have to say farewell to two beloved pets in that time span as well.

So of course I’m thankful that Mom is still around and actually doing quite well. But since Mom and her health has consumed my life since July, I don’t feel that I actually was able to fully process my Dad’s death. Certainly, it’s been a lot for any only child to take, with one parent passing, and one parent narrowly escaping death.

Mom and I have agreed that we will have a non-traditional Thanksgiving. Mom will probably have pasta, and I will have pizza. I remember last year, Dad was already in the hospital for Thanksgiving. I cooked a small traditional meal for myself, worried that at any moment, I could receive that call that he was passing. That first scare came the very next day, on Black Friday, when I was at work trying to help holiday shoppers find the best deals.

For some reason, or perhaps just by chance, Dad kept hanging in there until five days before Christmas. Ironically, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and one of the last times Dad was reasonably healthy.

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October 24, 2012 · 8:27 pm

Dad’s protest of “60 Minutes”

While going through Dad’s old letters, I came across a mysterious envelope from the TV network CBS. Apparently, way back in 1981, when I was just 7 years old, the news program “60 Minutes” aired a segment called, “Life and Death in an Irish Town.” I found a clip of the segment online. This clip is the followup to the original piece which dates back to 1975.

Dad was extremely sensitive with how the media portrayed Northern Ireland Catholics, and apparently, he took umbrage at this high-profile piece of TV journalism. I assume nowadays, times have changed, and people who shoot off an email criticizing a segment get a canned email response in return. But back then, the Director of Audience Services actually took time to respond to Dad’s concerns, though she pointed out that his critical viewpoint placed him squarely in the minority.

A copy of the response Dad received from CBS following his letter criticizing a segment about Northern Ireland.

I wish I had a copy of his original letter. Dad was a better writer than one might expect, considering he went to work in England at 16, and that’s when his formal education stopped. I believe he did take a few night school courses at a community college in L.A. once he was an adult.

Dad frequently sent off letters to the editor of our local newspapers, so finding this letter doesn’t surprise me, but it’s still an interesting piece to come across. I wonder if Dad was satisfied with the response.

I know he did continue to watch “60 Minutes” over the years.

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