Why I Care

Today, Sunday, February 27,2005, my family and I begin moving my dad out of the home he's lived in for 22 years.
We are moving him into a "long-term care facility," or a "rest home," or an "old age home." My mom, sister, and I are facing these fears like canoeing towards a waterfall. We're pulled and tugged and it's scary and people wonder why we don't just get out and DO SOMETHING... we have. We did. We tried. We tried again. We keep trying. Currents move without you in mind. They dictate.

I'll write more when I can. Right now I have to drive to my home town and... damn it... start saying "goodbye" to another part of my life.
Mrs. Garrett never covered this with Tootie on "The Fucts Of Life."
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One story that exemplifies my dad's nature and method of "dad'ing" has to be my Tackling Dummy story.
When I was about 5 or 6, my dad and I went to a swap meet and bought some old pee-wee sized football gear. Pads, helmet, pants, the whole deal. That Christmas I got a Tackling Dummy. We would head out into the back yard, me in full pads, cleats, and a mouthpiece, my dad in sweats, wielding a football and the Tackling Dummy. The T-Dum was a large blue rectangular column, about 5 feet high, with heavy-weight canvas straps. Full of high-impact foam, it was lightweigt but could pack a wallop when swung properly by a 5'6" Auburn University alum working his way up the ladder at Boeing, and the ranks of Kick-Ass Dad.

Dad would throw the ball up in the air, I'd catch it, then have to get past him and the T-dum without hitting the deck, or being decked. Holy lord, he would just CRANK me with that thing. He'd hit me high, from the side, in the hips, right at my feet, and I go ass over eyelids. Then I'd pop up and we'd laugh really hard about how high I got on that last one. It never hurt, it was always fun. We were both just cracking up the whole time.

3 years ago I was ran into a friend of mine who I played football with in high school. He had gone on to play four years in college, and said how much different it was, where the fun wasn't there as much as you had to be almost robotic about it. Very little screwing around, very little gamesmanship, just a bunch of pissing contests. You lose some autonomy and independence, and unless you're way up on the top of the heap, you aren't shit to anyone. Then it dawned on me...
When I was a kid, I really loved playing football with my dad. I was too big to play pee-wee football, even though I wanted to play every year. Youth soccer leagues don't have weight limits, so I learned to dribble for as many as ten feet before powering a shot at a schoolmate's raised hands, shielding the world from his or her screams. I wanted to win.
But since I couldn't play football with the other kids because of my genetic makeup (low-slung, thick-trunked peasant stock), I was never going to be able to play with the other kids. But I wanted to play football, full-pads, full-contact, full-speed hitting and thumping and getting dirty and knocked down and laughing it off and getting back up.
And my dad gave me that. I didn't realize it until 22 years later that I did play football as a little boy, in a game that had no score on a field that was no bigger than my living room, with a man who would do anything to make his kids happy. It was the most fun I ever had as a kid, and the best lesson I ever learned as a man. He still remembers it, and it never fails to get us both laughing again. I don't know that he grasps the importance and love when I thank him. I hope I've thanked him enough and made him proud of me enough times before his condition advanced to where it is now.

So when I write about how hard it is to see my dad's kind and handsome face blankly-masked behind the second stage of his early-onset Dementia, and how I think about how much he has done for me in my life that I am just now realizing the intent and impact of, I never fail to run a full spectrum of emotions. 3 minutes ago I was laughing about the time he whomped me at the ankles with the tackling dummy, and I flipped in the air and landed on my feet for a "touchdown," (just past the end of the awning) and my dad said "THAT WAS GREAT! HOLY SHIT! Don't say that in front of your mom." But now, I'm crying again.

It sucks to feel this. Helpless and almost hopeless and mad at nature and God and doctors and God again, because I can think of about 50 people who deserve to be stolen by Dementia before it ever sniffed my dad's Grey Flannel. But I have been given a lesson to learn. Among the homework is a little chapter on Perspective. I am sad and angry and crying and writing this because I love my dad, because of the man he's been to me and my family, and the lessons he's taught me. The perspective is that I don't cry, I don't feel one way or another about him, and I don't ever think of or talk about or have people he knows express their love and caring about him, because sometimes dad's aren't ready to be dads, for whatever reason. But he was, I was blessed to be "dad'ed" by him, and HOLY SHIT! He was great at it. And I will always say that, even in front of my mom.

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Take Me Home

My Blog About My Dad

When Your Ideals Seem Like Miracles

To begin, I must say this again.
To those of you who have shared your stories, kindness, and sympathy with me, I cannot thank you enough. You have shown bravery and selflessness in sharing those things with me, and as much as it's for me, I know that it's for YOU to be sharing, also. We're all being forced into growing faster than we'd like to in these situations, like being pressed into a Play-Doh mold, a thin layer taking the form of someone wiser and stronger, but damn if I don't feel hollow. I don't know when that will fill in. Perhaps it never does? Perhaps you just grow used to it until something reminds you of it, and there's that twinge.

My family is on the cusp of transition, and not a good transition, per se. Transition usually leads to a period of growth that you take with you, if wise enough, and hold on to like a lancing umbrella, perfect for when the fan turns in the face of a crap-pelting. This transition, to me anyway, feels like the beginning of the end. I haven't realized it in words like I just did, and damnit, now the tears are coming to my eyes. Damnit.

We're trying the best we can to treat my dad's condition and keep ourselves sane. My mom has taken the brunt of the condition. Her husband of 34 years has been replaced by a sometimes difficult, impulsive, child-like man who doesn't always remember to close the door when using the bathroom. This is the man who taught me the basics of calculus, jet-powered flight, spirituality, and most complex of all, women. He rarely knows what day it is. He is foreign, and alien, and it's a kick in the stomach.

The biggest question we've had through out of all this is "What are we supposed to do?" Can we heal him, without hurting him? We are feeling our way through this, like seeing-eye dogs led by a fast-walking master. My mom has the most interaction with my dad, and sees all of his ups and downs, riding her own peaks and valleys on a daily basis. She has sacrificed her time, sleep, days, nights, and much of her peace of mind to keep things moving along. Role reversal. Heartbreak. And perhaps now, hope.

My dad, while at Boeing, had invested money into a long-term care insurance program that looks like it will be a financial God-send now. In order to have this insurance take over, however, my dad would have to be in a facility. A home. Like an old-folk's home.
My dad? He's only 61. What the hell happened?
A couple weeks ago he spent a day at a home a few miles from my parent's house. The facility is equipped for the needs of people in all stages of life and dementia, keeping them socially and physically active and entertained. That's something my mom wasn't able to do, since there are so many other needs to meet, like running their budget, exercising, grocery shopping, laundry, and the daily things we all need to do for ourselves.

My dad spends one day there. And he LOVED it. So he went again last week. This time... LOVED it again. So now, our dilemma....
(more to come)