Just came back from seeing my Dad again today. For those of you who don’t know, my Dad has lived in a nursing home in Queensland for the last 2 ½ years when he became too much for my Mum to care for full time. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease some 16 years ago and has experienced a steady decline in his health since then. One of the …. I can’t think of a better word than “benefits” …. of living two states away is that every time I come up to visit (which isn’t as often as I’d like) there is a noticeable quantifiable decline in his health. I can’t say with any degree of certainty that he’s even known who I was the last 3 or 4 times. But this time is different. This time is what someone has labelled “The beginning of the end”. He hasn’t been able to eat or drink very easily for a few days now. He’s being fed a kind of milkshake type mixture from a sippy-cup, but this is a very time consuming exercise. They don’t even wheel him out of the room anymore. He is a shadow of his former self – his thighs are now about the same thickness as my ankles, his feet are bandaged because the skin is too fragile (he hasn’t used his legs for about a year) and his hands have started to swell and hence, are painful. The skin on his face looks almost as if it has been painted on to his skull. His beard is messy and straggly. It strikes me as somewhat odd, looking at all the newspaper articles and photographs that my mother has lovingly plastered all over the walls, that here is a man who has done some amazing things in his life (ridiculously amazing – some of which I didn’t even know about since my memory only dates back to the early 70’s) but yet he is a living corpse – unable to communicate, unable to feed himself, unable to …. well, you get the drift. The workers at the home (who, by the way, do a terrific job) have very little idea of who he actually was as a person, as a father, as a husband, as a citizen, as a great thinker (picture a cross between Professor Julius Sumner-Miller and Carl Sagan) and I get this tremendous sense of sadness - that they will never know him, as we do. All that knowledge, experience, and compassion – lost forever. To all of you who knew him before he got “old”, you will know what I’m talking about. My parents were never accused of being “cool” and as a child/teenager that’s somewhat of a burden to bear – but he did, they both did, heaps for us growing up, more than we ever knew at the time. I so wish that he knew exactly how much I appreciate everything that he taught me (or got frustrated TRYING to teach me), how much I appreciate all the sacrifices he made for me (for all of us), and how much of it actually sank in. And now that I’ve “grown up” just how thankful I am for my very unique parentage and upbringing. I’ve tried to tell him over the last couple of visits. Never goes well. He looks blankly at the wall, or worse doesn’t even open his eyes (although I did get a reaction to my voice yesterday afternoon, he slowly opened one eye, whether it was recognition of my voice or simply “what is that infernal noise ? And can’t you see I’m busy catching up on the sleep I never got 40 years ago”) …. and I just end up a blubbering mess. Which is odd considering the sheer inevitability of it all. We all KNEW this is the path that he would go down. And that gets me thinking more. Too much. I look at him lying there helpless, mouth agape, limbs trembling, vacant expression – and I see myself. A bit like Luke saw himself in the cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back. Then I see my Mum, so dedicated, so loving, so committed, feeding him, making sure he’s not too warm, not too cold, faithfully visiting him and sitting with him even though he is capable of nothing in return. We suspect he doesn’t even know it’s her any more. And it breaks my heart …. but she just keeps doing what she does. Her sole focus in the last few years has been Dad. What will happen after he’s gone ? I’m feeling pretty melancholic right now, imagine what life will be like for her. Almost 55 years together (married for over 52) now reaching it’s end. I’m having difficulty comprehending that …. Tomorrow I will go and see my Dad again. Possibly for the last time. I probably should go back home to Melbourne. He may hang on ‘til Christmas, then again he may go next week. But life beckons. Responsibility calls. Our futile existences and busyness need to be attended to. The next time I see him will quite possibly be in a box. I’ll be messy again. And it will be the greatest privilege to help carry that box out a church in Laidley. The man who carried me, who created me (he had some help allegedly) who paid for my life and happiness with his own sweat. The man who gave me opportunities and steered me in directions that make my life the beautiful thing it is today. And it’s still beautiful, it’s just horrendously sad right now.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:19:08 +0000
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