They just keep on getting bigger.
No sooner had I walked out of the rest home with the last of my father's belongings, the place was put into lockdown.
Two weeks after his passing, everybody's lives have been dramatically altered. But for me, it almost seems normal. The past decade was filled with one challenge after another, as all the pieces in my life started to tumble like dominos, and all I could do was stand there and watch, until the last one fell to end with nothing but silence.
About 10 years ago, my mother started having respiratory problems, and was eventually diagnosed with COPD. a few years later she was getting hospice care and by 2013, she was gone. My father was devastated. He was now living alone, and as I took him to grief counseling, it was discovered that he had dementia. For the next two years, I would take him to his doctors visits, and eventually be his interpreter for the physician's questions, since the disease was robbing my dad of his speech. After a fainting episode one summer, it was discovered he needed a heart valve replaced in his aorta. Without it, he would be gone within 1-2 years. He wanted to stick around, so we okayed the procedure, and after rehabilitating for a few weeks after, we moved him into a rest home in Avon, where he would be surrounded by people like himself.
I felt that my dad would have a good shot at living as long as 5 extra years with the new heart valve. I was not sure what the quality of life would be like toward the end of those years, and it turns out the first few were quite good. He enjoyed his cocktails, hearing music either in his room, or when performers came around.
I got to sing for him several times over the years, including New Year's Eves and Fathers Days.
I don't know who was prouder.
A Few Things About My Dad.
My Dad was an enthusiastic athlete. Baseball and Basketball especially. He played baseball through high school and into American Legion. He told a story of how he played one of those later games against a team of prisoners at a penitentiary facility. I was enthusiastic about being a baseball player, but was too small and a step too slow in my reactions. Basketball was especially hopeless. In my dad's his later years, he played tennis and golf. I would play both of those sports with him, and did quite well. Especially at Tennis. I was a soccer and track guy, but only because I was better at those sports, but my father was an athlete, so I aspired to be the best I could at whatever I adapted to easiest. He would go to my soccer games. Sometimes I played, and sometimes I didn't. Most of the time I did, and the results were better than average. He was proud enough, and I was glad he was there.
My Dad liked music. Although he had no natural musical ability. He loved Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong, Elvis. I had two older brothers growing up before me, and contemporary music was shaping the sounds of a household. Simon and Garfunkel, Jim Croce, Seals and Crofts, John Denver, Carol King, Gordon Lightfoot, The Carpenters. The Doors, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Santana, Willie Nelson, CCR. Rock Music started to become accepted listening. He admired David Bowie and Freddie Mercury's voices, and Elton John and Billy Joel's songs.
As I eventually became a working musician, my father had long accepted I was going to do what it was I enjoyed the most. My folks were worried I would not be able to survive, but eventually stopped over-worrying about it after I moved away with a small amount of money I earned playing for a year in a Top 40 band. 20 years later, I was still playing out full time and my dad was bragging to people about how much I was working.
He was retired, and wondered what he was going to do with his life...
The last couple of years, my father had started to decline. His balance was poor, and he developed an irregular heartbeat. A bout with influenza left him frail and in a wheelchair. I started to wonder if we had done the right thing with his operation. He still had good days, but they became fewer. He voluntarily moved into the memory care wing, and lived a quiet life for awhile.
Late last year, it was determined he had less than 6 months to live, and started to receive hospice care. The disease was starting to effect his ability to dress and feed himself, he became increasingly disoriented and anxious. Mood stabilizers did very little to help. Soon, he was on morphine and it was even harder to reach him when I visited. His weight started dropping and he dozed off several times during the day. We were informed he had days, maybe a week remaining.
The last time I saw my father he was sleeping peacefully in his bed. I imagined that being the last time I saw him, and I preferred the image of him at rest.
He certainly earned it.
So long Dad. I'll take it from here.
Thanks for everything.
I love you.
