Proof Of Life

I haven’t put finger to computer here in over a month and while i was hoping to write a lot more -i’ve managed to write a lot less. I think i was depressed and not really able to put my finger on it. I wasn’t able to make money, I had gained some weight, and my dad was crying regularly on the phone. I realized I needed a break and I needed to not focus on the things that I couldn’t control and focus on the things i could. So i stopped smoking pot, stopped worrying about money and went to see my dad. And that made the other things really seem dumb.

My dad will be 97 in December. I would say “if he makes it” but I swear that man is going to hold on forever. What he’s holding onto I don’t know. He is in a nursing home, in a bed with a curtain separating him from a very loud chatty somewhat annoying roomate, eating purated food and refusing to make friends or join in the activities. He’s also unable to walk anymore so he’s bound to a wheelchair. The only thing he wants to do is sit outside in the sunshine which he’s no longer able to do because the staff thinks it’s too hot and he’ll die outside. I say, at least he’d die happy.

The hardest part of watching a parent in the final stages of life for me is that it reminds me of my own mortality and I’m not the kind of person who will do well in a nursing home without my own room and i haven’t exactly saved for the kind of situation i would like so it all feels a bit scary and much to real.

I took a bunch of old photo albums with me and my dad loved going through his teenage years and early relationship with my mom - a relationship that turned sour after I was born because she didn’t want a third kid. Its a secret burden I have carried with me for most of my life. I felt it. Even if no one ever said it out loud until now.

My dad was thrilled to remember a life he forgot he had. A life of happiness and hopefulness and the anything is possible air that hung around his new life in America where they emigrated from England. But the next day he seemed even sadder - as if those memories were now haunting his present - saying - how the hell did i end up here.

I don’t want that to be me but I also don’t know how to stop it.

I still wake up everyday hoping my dad finds the peace to just let go and see my mom in heaven and realize this was all just one of his souls journeys and that all is forgiven.

I wish i could see him more before he goes but I do rest easy in the knowledge that what i was once so angry with him about no longer matters. We are a clean slate. And i know when he does die he’ll go knowing i loved him. And that makes me a little less depressed.