10 Days with Dad

Dad 1966 Phantom Lake Manitoba

Why is today so hard.  I feel so heavy and so sad.  I’ve flown out to spend the 10 days before Christmas with my Dad but, for the first time since he fell down and began his aggressive decent toward stage 7 Alzheimer, I feel hopeless.  I’m starting to think that it’s okay if my Dad dies now.   I am burned out and in debt from flying back and forth every weekend.  My life is jammed up behind me.  I have neglected my friends, the people I love and my co-workers and I can’t remember the last time actually felt happiness.   I see my Dad and I know he doesn’t know who I am.  Who I really am. I know that I am a familiar face, like the lady who brings in his clean towels…but I am afraid that I have become just one of many faces in his life.  My Dad is always smiling and many people pop in to say hi to him.  But for the first time in 9 months I'm afraid that I may no longer be special to him.  I know that other than a look of recognition I've become just one of many.  I can’t remember the last time I exhaled. 

I’m sitting beside my Dad as I write this.  I just broke down and started crying…I truly feel lost right now.  My beautiful Dad just handed me his little quilt, saying “here”.  I guess he felt I needed comfort.  He's right.  I wish I could ask him if he knows me, but I could never do that to him.  I never want him to leave his warm cocoon of comfort.  I never want him to be reminded of the fact that he can’t remember.  He can’t remember and I can’t forget.

I work very hard on making sure I write only about my Dad….the incredible person that he is, the amazing life that he had and how special he is to me.  I try very hard not to turn everything into something about me, but today I feel nothing but weakness, sorrow and selfishness.  As I sit here I am trying hard to lift myself out of this feeling, but I can’t.  My Dad and I are watching Band of Brothers, and HBO mini-series box set that my Dad got for Christmas a few years back.  He absolutely loves this series….he knows the name of it, nods his head when I mention things about the show and is completely enraptured by it.  Every once in a while he’ll notice me, smile and say….”There you are” and then go back to the show.  This is what it has come to.  This is who we are now. 

It’s cold in my Dad’s room today.  I put an extra blanket on his lap.  I checked his feet to see if they are cold too. Because he has restless feet the staff at Dad’s care center put padded booties on his feet so he won’t get sores on his heels.  Bed sores are extremely hard to treat.  They are like open ulcers and rarely heal.  For most of his later years my Dad’s feet have caused him trouble. He had a couple of botched surgeries on them when he was in his late 30’s and they never really got sorted out.  But that never stopped him from doing all the things he wanted to do.  He golfed every day that he could and he played lots of baseball.  My Dad has all sorts of scars on his feet from his younger days in the Airforce baseball league.  He was quite the serious baseball player.  First base and catcher.  When you play serious baseball you wear serious cleats and serious cleats leave serious scars on the feet of the people trying to tag you out.  My Dad was proud of his scars.  He loved playing baseball.  I vividly remember the very first time he gave me his catcher’s mitt to throw the ball around with.  I remember how heavy it was and how funny it looked, but I didn’t care because it gave me a reason to be with my Dad.  I started playing ball when I was 8 with a catcher’s mitt that weighed more than I did. I continued playing community league ball every summer until I was in my mid-30’s.  My Dad played ball until he was in his late 60’s. 

When I was about 11 years old my Dad coached my little league team.  I was a pretty good little ball player and, during a practice game, managed to crack the ball into left field. The throw went to home plate where my Dad was standing.  I decided to go for it and try to round second on my way to third base.  My Dad must have thought he was making a run for the pennant, because he threw the ball at the second baseman like he was playing in the World Series.  I remember distinctly seeing the second base-gal cover her face with her baseball glove……just as the ball whistled past her.  Instead of my Dad’s throw connecting with KiKi’s glove, it smashed into my face stopping me cold.  Legend has it that I actually did a flip in the air when the ball hit me.  When I woke up there was my Dad bent over me asking me if I was okay.  When I told him I was alright he let out a huge sigh of relief and said “Listen” (He always said “Listen” when he had something important to say) “Don’t tell your Mother I did this and I’ll buy you a Banana Split after every game for the rest of the summer. “. I agreed instantly.  After we got home from the first of many Banana Splits that season, I kept my promise and never told my Mom what Dad did.  I had a goose egg on my cheek for months and when I smile you can actually still see a bit of a dent in my cheek right under my left eye. It was a heck of a bruise.  I should have held out for more than just a Banana Split, but frankly…it was hanging out with my Dad that meant more to me than the ice-cream.   Last year my Dad gave me his baseball glove and asked me to take care of it for him.  He was worried it would get thrown out. It had a baseball tucked into it and was wrapped up with an old band of leather.  He told me not to give it away because he would probably want it back.  I wish that was true.