Mama and Me Part 2-Dad
My father was one of the greatest men I have ever known. Sure, I’m a bit biased, but I sincerely mean it. My relationship with him when I was a teenager was a bit strained, as many are between teens and their parents. One of my sisters even wrote a paper in college comparing my relationship with Dad to the father-daughter characters in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” Truth be told, we butted heads because we were too much alike — both of us stubborn to a fault.
When it came to caring for Mom after Alzheimer’s disease had taken hold, however, we made a pretty darn good team. He tended to be very hands off, leaving it to me to make sure she brushed her teeth, dressed properly and bathed on a regular basis. In short, I did the things that might bring out her anger. What Dad provided in her care was just as important, though. He simply was there for her. I handled the tough jobs because the last thing he wanted was for her to be angry with him. His job was to love her, spoil her, dote on her, cook her meals, make her feel safe and loved. In so doing, he became her one source of familiarity and comfort as the Alzheimer’s took a stronger hold and she began to no longer recognize her surroundings or the people she once knew. He was with her, day in and day out, a calm and reassuring presence, except during the few hours each morning when he would get respite and enjoy a round of golf with his friends.
Each time after my almighty struggle to get Mom into the shower, after I had helped her to get dressed and comb her hair, I would say, “Now, go out there and show him how beautiful you are!” She would walk out to the kitchen and give him a flirtatious smile. His reaction was always the same. His face would light up and he would say, “Wow! Look at that pretty lady!” And he would continue to gush and tell her how wonderful she was as she sauntered about the room. I would stand back and smile, taking in the happy moments when I could get them.
One of the aspects about Dad that frustrated me most when caring for Mom, interestingly, now makes me smile when I remember it. He just couldn’t seem to grasp that Mom couldn’t be reasoned with, nor did he ever seem to realize just how much of her short-term memory had disappeared. They would get into arguments and bicker back and forth over the most trivial things, such as who put the ice cream into the refrigerator or sometimes a kitchen cabinet. The argument usually went something like this:
Dad: “Somebody put the ice cream in the fridge again!”
Mom: “Well, it wasn’t me! You must have done it!”
“Why would I have put it in the fridge? I didn’t do it, you did it!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did!”
“nu-uh!”
“Yeah-huh!”
And so on.
“It was me!!” I would finally interject in exasperation. “I was the one who put it in the fridge!”
Mom: “See, I told you it wasn’t me!”
And then they would both take great delight in teasing me for my “mistake.” All I could do was throw my hands in the air and walk away. I later would always try to explain to Dad that Mom didn’t know any better and couldn’t remember things she did even a few minutes prior no matter how much he tried to reason with her. I would tell him to just humor her and not call her out on things, but it never seemed to work. Looking back, I think he actually enjoyed their back-and-forth spats.
Dad’s devotion to her never wavered as the years passed and she descended deeper into the disease. I can only imagine how difficult and how emotionally painful it must be to shoulder the burden of a dying spouse, watching your hopes of a happy retirement together vanish into thin air and be replaced by the bleak landscape of Alzheimer’s. Still I rarely saw him display any emotion other than upbeat happiness.
I did not see any form of sadness or depression in him until after Mom moved into the nursing home. A month after her admittance, Dad sold the house in which he and Mom had spent the previous 40 years raising their family and weathering the ups and downs together and moved into a small condo near the nursing home. He struggled with this adjustment, struggled with suddenly living alone in a new space after spending half a lifetime with his wife by his side and 10 noisy children filling their home.
He did eventually adjust, but I don’t think he was ever really happy living there. Where Dad was Mom’s constant source of familiarity and comfort before she went into the nursing home, she became his afterward. Every single day his health would allow for nearly seven years he would go to the nursing home at noon, feed Mom her lunch, take her back to her room and sit with her until 2 p.m., though sometimes he would stay a little later, having fallen asleep. Many times I, another family member or a nurse would walk into Mom’s room and find them side-by-side, sometimes holding hands, chins on their chests, both of them enjoying an afternoon nap.
My brother Alan, No. 6 out of the 10 of us, visited Mom one day while Dad was feeding her. Intending to try to ease Dad’s burden, he said, “Dad, you don’t have to come here every day. She doesn’t even know who you are any more.” Dad looked at him with disappointment and simply replied, “But I know who she is.” That was my father, fully devoted to and in love with his wife to the very end.
Dad died on July 12, 2014, at the age of 83 and it totally devastated me. We had grown very close in the years caring for Mama before she went into the nursing home and even closer in the years that had followed, when his own health had begun to fail and I’d become his primary caretaker. He was strong and yet so kind, always the calm voice of reason. A towering six foot, four inches tall in his prime, he was the mighty oak that kept our family rooted together.
Dad was gone, no longer dutifully feeding Mom lunch every day. Being the one constant anchor in her life, we didn’t think she’d long survive him, but somehow she did for nearly two more years. I don’t think Dad truly left us after he passed, though. I believe he stayed, regularly visiting me and other family members but spending most of his time with Mama, and I believe he was waiting to greet her just on the other side when Mom finally passed on May 23, 2016.
Today, as I write this post and look at Dad’s picture sitting next to my desk, I can hardly believe four years have already come and gone since I said goodbye. I look at his blue eyes that are just like mine, and the same pain I felt four years ago still burns in my heart. If I am able to live my life with half of his faith, his devotion, his character and his calm happiness, it will be a life well lived.
♥️