Death and Memories

     Dad was finally close to coming home from the nursing facility.  He wanted to be home more than anything.  But he started having labored breathing.  Then the nursing facility after discovering that he had pneumonia and congestive heart failure decided to send him home instead of back to the hospital.

     My brother picked him up and brought him home for what we didn't know would be the final time.  I tried to visit but Dad went to bed early that night.  Then overnight Dad couldn't breath well so my brother took Dad to the emergency room.  I wasn't there when Dad was admitted.  My brother has become my father's and my rock I couldn't have gone through these last 14 months, or even the last three years without him.

    I visited Dad and I knew it was bad.  We met with the doctors and we decided to bring Dad home with Hospice care, but he had to survive the weekend first.  My birthday was on Saturday and I jokingly told Dad, after he told me that he wasn't doing well and I found out he asked for last rights, that he wasn't allowed to die on my birthday.  He laughed and wished me a happy birthday.  I will always remember that conversation and the last time I hear his laugh.  Of course his last laugh was actually passing away on my birthday; bright and early in the morning too.  He always had to do everything early in the morning.

     My relationship with my father has gone through so many different stages.  Some I remember better than others.  My mother tells me when I was a child Dad and I were inseparable.  We would play together and we had a special father daughter bond.  I have no recollection of that.  I have seen photos of us playing together and it is like looking at photos of people I don;t know.  I have no emotions or memories connected to them.

     When I was in fifth grade I went to an after school event involving basketball.  My mom picked me up and took me to piano lessons.  I remember being in the gymnasium that day and not much else.  When I got to piano I ran across the street and hit a car driving by.  The impact was on my knees and I hit my head when I landed.  I received a concussion and I lost most of my memories of what happened before that day.

     I have a flash of awareness in ambulance and in the emergency room.  I have an impression of people all around me and working on me.  It is like they show you on tv.  A flash here, it is blurry and you hear sounds and I can remember the smell of rubbing alcohol.  My first clear memory is waking up in a crib.  I was a fifth grader in a crib, I was in the ICU at Children's Hospital and the bed had a drop side that was all the way up.  I was in a CRIB!  I didn't care, I was in pain, my head hurt, my knees were completely covered in giant bruises and I was alone.

     My first real memory after that event was breakfast in the morning and how HORRIBLE it was.  Runny eggs, I can still smell them, feel how slimy they were and taste their sulfuric flavor.  Dad picked me up from the hospital and when I got home he had me set the table.  It hurt to walk.  My knees have never fully recovered from that accident.  I remember how mad I was that I had to set the table on the day I got home from the hospital.  He didn't let me off the hook just because I was hurt.

     I hate that my first real memory of my dad is me being upset with him.  I am sure we got into a fight and I am sure I was furious with him.  It is a horrible memory and it will always be something I think of when I think of my father.

     Our relationship when I was a teen was not any better.  He and I were always fighting.  We were always at odds with each other.  We were mean to each other.  I hated him when I was a teen.  I think our relationship was worse than others.  I was not a happy teenager.  I was picked on in school, I wen to a Catholic high school to get away from being bullied at school.  I felt bullied at home.  And I couldn't wait to get away from him.

     In my twenties I didn't live with my parents.  That was when I started to reconnect with my father.  Now that I was adult and I was becoming more assertive.  Not like I am now, but compared to how I was in my teens it was a world of difference.  I moved out of state and Dad begged me to stay.  I actually considered it too.

     After I got married he and I had a different kind of relationship again.  We would talk almost as equals.  I still remember dancing with me at my wedding.  He was such a wonderful dancer.  He guided me around the dance floor with no effort.  A skill I never managed to develop. I think it was the best I ever have danced.  Maybe you just need a good leader.

     When I became a mother again our relationship changed and I found myself asking him for advice now and again.  If my teenage self could only see me then.  She never would have believed it.  I seriously hated my father back then.  Will my teen think of me like that?

     Then I caught my husband cheating on me and it was my father who encouraged me to give him a second chance.  I tried for years.  When I finally told my father about the abuse he no longer asked me to forgive D.  My father by then couldn't walk long distances and needed a walker.  I wonder what Dad would have done if he had been at his peak condition.  I was afraid of him when I was younger for good reason.  He was not someone you wanted to make upset.

     It was after my mother was blown over in that windstorm and I finally left my husband that I reconnected with my father.  Our roles were reversed.  I was the one taking care of him.  I had to make sure he took his meds and made him his meals.  He and I would talk and laugh as I took him to visit Mom every day.  He told me stories about Mom that I never knew.  (She almost got in a fist fight with a friend who kept trying to steal Dad away from her.)

     I am the one who brought Dad to visit his wife for the last time.  I am the one who got the phone call when she passed and had to walk upstairs, wake him up and tell him that his wife had died.  When he forgot because of the dementia both my brother and I had to tell him again what happened.  He blamed my brother at first.  Even when I told him I was the one who signed the papers he blamed S.

     It was the 14 months after that that my brother and his family took over my father's care.  When asked I would help out.  I hated to see him deteriorate before my eyes.  He lost his vision in his last year.  He lost most of his mobility.  He didn't even like to leave the house.  He missed his wife and now he is with her again.

     I think he was proud of me.  He saw me go back to school twice.  He witnessed my graduation Magna Cum Laude with my bachelors degree.  He saw me became a mother.  Go back to school and get my teaching degree so I could provide for my children.  He saw me assert myself and get out of a bad and abusive marriage.  He allowed me to move back in with him and taking care of him and my mother.  I have to say those were the best nine months.  It ended being more than I could handle but I will never wish I did anything different.

    He is gone now, but never forgotten.  I miss you so much Dad!

In Loving Memory Of My Father  -  October 30, 1935 to October 17, 2015

You will never be forgotten 

One Year Ago...

     I remember the drive back from Pennsylvania.  I had no idea if I could make it.  Four hours in my car knowing that when I arrived I had to go to the hospital and sign the papers that would allow the doctors to take my mother off life support.  Luckily my daughter was with me and we listened to loud music to distract us.  Singing at the top of our lungs and keeping out minds off of the fact that my mom, her grandma was lying in a hospital brain dead and that I had to sign the DNR papers at the hospital that night after I got home.

     I dropped her off at her father's house and asked her if she wanted to say goodbye to grandma before we disconnected her.  My mom had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order.  That took all the stress of having to make the decision off my shoulders.  In a pinch my brother could do it, but I was her Health Care Proxy and I knew I had to.  She picked me for a reason.

     That night before everything was disconnected my daughter chose to go to the hospital and say good bye.  My son didn't want to and I didn't for him.  We all had to handle this our own ways.  My little one went up to Grandma in her bed.  The sound of beeping and oxygen filled the air and she told Grandma how much she loved her and would miss her.  She took Grandma's hand in her own and said good bye.  Tonight would deb the last time she would be with the woman who helped raise her, who spoiled her and loved her.  My little girl was so brave.

     The nurses disconnected everything and we settled in for al on night, Moms sister came to spend time with us.  My brother's wife and oldest son were there.  Everyone had someone to comfort them and I was all alone.  My ex picked up our daughter and barely acknowledged my pain.  Is it selfish to have wanted someone with me to hold me while I watched my mother die?

     She didn't go that night, nor the next.  In fact it wasn't until she was moved into a private room and we had a hissy fit when we discovered the nurses put her on oxygen despite the fact we specifically said she wasn't to be put on oxygen.  She hated being connected to oxygen and the possibility of her passing while connected to it was too much for us.

     That night in the hospital we reminisced on how she started her life.  When my grandmother was pregnant with my mother she was under the impression that she was having one baby. Little did she know that my mother was lurking with Uncle Bill just waiting to be born. When the time came she went to the hospital and the doctor delivered a health baby boy (My Uncle Bill). Job well done the doctor thought one mom and one baby. 

The nurse was massaging (it doesn't feel like a massage,lol) grandma's stomach to help everything along and wait what was that? It can't be? Doctor! Yes there was my mother stubborn even before she was born not wanting to come into the world with her brother. Now, she doesn't want to follow him out of this world. She is holding on and being her lovable stubborn self.

I had dad visit the next day to say his goodbyes.  He didn't stay long but I took this photo.  The last time they held hands while she was alive.  
Wednesday night April 20, after we had her oxygen removed, I bent down and kissed her cheek.  I whispered inner her ear that it was okay, she could go.  Not even two hours later than hospital called to let me know she had passed.  I called my brother, and then went upstairs to tell my father.  That was heart breaking.  He wouldn't go back to the hospital.  My brother, his wife, my daughter and I all wine to the hospital and said goodbye.

I love you mom and I always will.  So many times this year I needed to talk to you and tell you what was happening.  I know you have been with me.  Blessed be!