Ordinary Days with My Father

Part I

My father lived on an island, just a couple of blocks from the beach. I grew up there, but live a three-hour drive away in PA. However, over the past six years I have mostly stayed with my parents to help with my mother, then later just my father, trying to help him as much as he would let me. Though he turned 96 this past August, he looked and acted healthier than most 86-year-olds up until the end of August, when a routine blood test found he was anemic, and more tests revealed he had colon cancer which had metastasized into his liver. He could still walk fairly well, though he had poor balance and needed to use a cane. His short-term memory was getting worse, but for the most part, he had all of his faculties and was in fairly good health other than the cancer. He had a major heart attack almost two years ago, but survived it and was doing well, though he seemed to get more fragile as the months went on, which I now realize was because of the cancer. I know I have been incredibly lucky. Most people lose their parents at a much younger age, or their parents become disabled much earlier in life and need much more care as they age.

When there were no crises, in a typical day, dad woke up first, sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m. If he stayed up late watching TV, he might sleep in till 8:00 a.m. I’m a light sleeper, so I always woke up when he wandered into the living room to check his blood sugar (he had Type 2 diabetes). I would get up and make breakfast for both of us. As we ate, we didn’t say much. I’m not a morning person and was usually half asleep, and we were both quiet introverts. Sometimes I’d ask the Echo, “Alexa, what’s the weather today?” If it was going to be a nice day, Dad would say, “Good. Guess I should go for a walk after I get dressed.” I’d say, “Yup.” If it was too cold, or too hot or rainy, he’d give an excuse to get out of the walk, and I’d try to talk him into going for at least a short walk anyway. I cleaned up the dishes as he wandered off.

He was growing more fragile, slowly but inexorably. He had a lot of trouble walking all the way down to the beach from his house to the water’s edge, a little over two long blocks. He had to stop and rest along the way several times. We walked to the beach to sit there on the Fourth of July and watch the fireworks our town sets off from a spot further downbeach. (We use the term “downbeach” on these islands to mean the direction of the beach though it can be used as a noun, adjective, or verb.) He tried to carry his beach chair by himself. He had to stop several times and rest. It was hard for him to walk across the dunes and sand.

On the way back, I carried both of our chairs, but we still had to stop several times. However, most weeks he often walked down to the bulkhead, sat for a while on the bench at the top of the sand dune and enjoyed the view, then walked back. He did this a few times a week, though less frequently toward the end.

He went for a walk each day, mostly, even if just for a few blocks. He loved to stop and talk to a neighbor who might be out doing something then. He liked to go to the local Jewish Community Center, which has the only public pool nearby, and swim a few laps. He worked out at the gym there, too, on a stationary bike and rowing machine, then he would sit in the steam room. That’s where he had his second heart attack and died. He mourned the loss of the jacuzzi there, which broke and was never fixed or replaced. The JCC was also a social activity for him. He chatted with a lot of the people there; most of the regulars knew him and looked after him. He had slipped a few times in the locker room and shower, but, fortunately, someone was always there to help him. I believe being this active kept him healthy and engaged with life.

He was not a fan of cleaning or other housekeeping activities. The woman who cleaned the house for my parents for approximately twenty-five years used to clean every other week when my mother was alive, but after she died, my father insisted on limiting her cleaning to every three weeks. “This place doesn’t get dirty,” he liked to claim, though it did. A lot. He just couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. He also didn’t like spending money on things he didn’t value, and he didn’t value a clean house. I made him help me clean it a few times by getting him to dust the furniture. He was always astonished at how much dust piles up over a few weeks, but then he promptly forgot that unless I threatened to make him do the dusting again. (Usually when he complained about paying someone to clean the house. I didn’t like having to clean both my own house and his.) The woman who cleaned for us, who by now is also a friend, laughs about that and says it’s a male thing. The specter of my mother in my head made me keep it clean in between our cleaner’s visits despite my bad back and progressing arthritis. My mother liked the place clean. Once a month I left Dad alone for a few days and drove back to PA to clean my own house and do yardwork.

Each day I made him lunch and cleaned up. Then he went to the JCC. Often, I went to the JCC, too, and worked out in the pool, but he insisted on taking separate cars so he didn’t have to wait for me. It was pretty much the only place he drove to. I tried to make sure I drove when he wanted to go somewhere else, without actually making him feel like I didn’t want him to drive. That was a hard sell. He was sure he was still a good driver. However, his reflexes and sense of direction were not what they used to be. He had a couple of friends who picked him up and brought him home from his American Legion and Knights of Columbus meetings. They were very nice and politic about it. They just called and asked if he was going and if he’d like to go with them. They made it sound like a social thing, not that they didn’t think he should be driving at night.

In the early evenings, I made dinner. I’m a vegetarian; he was emphatically not. This was a challenge, especially since I don’t particularly like cooking. Sometimes while we were eating, I asked him questions about his life. Even as an adult, though, it was sometimes hard to imagine him as more than just Dad. His stories helped me see him as a person with a full life and dreams. That may be one of the hardest parts about being an adult—learning to think of parents as ordinary human beings with separate lives, a past, dreams, ambitions.   

To be continued next week…