Memorial Day.
Seven years ago, my father lay close to death in a nursing home. My nephew, who had been quite close to him came for a visit as did my sister. Sometimes he was lucid, sometimes confused, sometimes just not there at all. I had planted a couple of hanging pots and put a double shepherd hook outside his window to attract birds and butterflies. He had loved them so. Seldom did he see or recognize them any more. But in those last days, he saw things flying about his room and heard children laughing when none were about.
He never stopped knowing me. For that I am thankful.
On Memorial Day, my husband took me out to one of our favorite places and we spent the day hiking and looking and four wheeling. It was a rainy day after a rainy month and the water was high in the creek. The shale was slick and the trails had deep water filled potholes. It was a sweet day breathing clean air and we stayed a long time. On our way back home, we stopped at the nursing home to check on dad. The end was very close. With a sense of resignation, I went home and cleaned up. I headed back to the nursing home where my mother waited with my father for the inevitable.
My mother was very ill after I was born. Then when she did come home, she became pregnant almost immediately and had a very difficult time. My father raised me. He took me home from the hospital, cared for me in every way. Fed me, bathed me, diapered me, played with me. When I was 9 months old, mom gave birth to a premature baby boy. The baby eventually died and she was in the hospital again for a long time.
Daddy taught me to sing and love music. He taught me to read and love books. He taught me to shoot a gun, scrub a floor and cook potatoes. He instilled in me a quirky, unpredictable sense of humor. Growing up, my father was the main positive presence in my life.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mother or that she didn’t love me. We just didn’t bond in the same critical way that my dad and I did. She had no patience for my hyperactive antics and no enjoyment of my creative mind. I could not argue the expanse of the universe with my mom. Her dreams were private except that I could see them in her eyes.
While it is true that my dad was not one to allow disrespect of any nature, he enjoyed a certain mental joust. We sparred often. I learned logic and how to present an idea. I also learned to recognize when I was stepping a little to close to the fire, so to speak.
He wrote poetry and rewrote established poetry. He had memorized large quantities of poetry as a young boy and would recite lengthy passages with little or questionable provocation. Every now and then, he’d recite them correctly, just to prove he could! When I began writing music, he would listen with all his being and tears would stream down his smiling face. The loss of our musical tie was the first indication that all was not well with the world. When I would sing a new song to him, he’d look confused and then say, “Well wasn’t that nice.” At first I was hurt. But love won out and I stopped singing anything unfamiliar.
My dad was devoted to his wife, his God and his country. He cried each time he heard the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem. The last best outing we shared was on the 4th of July in 1999. We had bought dad a wheel chair. At first, we just rented one for special occasions, but eventually the most practical solution to many problems was to get him one of his own.
After finding a parking spot that 4th of July, my husband, my mother and I wheeled him toward the park where we would listen to a variety of music and later watch fireworks. We jostled him and joked with him and then contemplated how we’d take him down a steep embankment so we didn’t have to go all the way back around. Soon it became a community project to get my rather large father down that hill without doing damage. People we didn’t know joined in and we all laughed and joked and succeeded.
I’ll never forget watching him cry during the patriotic selections and watching the glow in his eyes during the fine fireworks display. He reached over and took my mom’s hand and she sat a little closer and they were, one last time, enamored with each other. I cried.
As I entered the nursing home that Memorial Day late, my mind went over the hardness of the past few years. My parents moved close to me to keep my father from having to go to a nursing home. In the end, I failed. My fathers will to live was only rivaled by his desire to die. Nothing made sense anymore.
He was unconscious, or so it seemed. As I came in and took his hand, he squeezed mine and smiled though he didn’t open his eyes. My mother walked down the hall to talk to a nurse. “Juanita!” he cried out. “She’ll be right back, daddy,” I said softly. He calmed down, eyes still closed.
About 4AM, the nurse came in to give him some medication to help relieve the stress of his extreme struggle with breathing. Mom needed a break and went down to the lobby to put her feet up and rest a bit.
Watching daddy heave and gasp tore me inside out. I laid my hand on his head told him I loved him and that we would be alright. He could go. He took two more breaths and stopped. I called the nurse and they brought mom back. We took care of some paperwork, gathered up a few things and went home – empty.
Every Memorial Day since, I’ve taken time to remember. It’s not that I’m sad for his passing. His life was a prison.
I just miss him so much.
The picture is of my parents and my three oldest daughters taken in the 70's.
