February 10
I opened my mailbox to find a thick, yellow packet. It sat there all night long - laying in wait, cold and still. The top sheet said the state agreed that my father’s insurance denial was, in fact, correct. We would have to turn over all of his savings and life insurance to the nursing home for him to win coverage. Even though this was the likely and expected outcome, it gutted me. Individualism in this country requires that success, and hardship, are completely up to you alone to solve, despite the fact that life is never in our control. The older I get, the more I realize that privilege begets privilege, pre-destiny is real, and there are no fucking bootstraps. How much of our life’s decisions are actually able to advance us more than one or two rungs up the latter, save for some extreme stroke of luck?
They call it the sandwich generation when you’re taking care of both your children and your parents. The vice is so tight right now that my head aches all of the time. I stay up late every night, mindlessly scrolling the Internet, absorbing all sorts of escapist articles and videos. My eyes are heavy and cold, like marbles pressing my brow bones - yet I keep myself awake to be alone. I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained. I worry all of the time that my kids are unhappy, my house is getting eaten by unseen animals, my body is silently growing disease, my father is losing his mind in the nursing home. And just when I start to regain my confidence, I am set back again by a letter, a meltdown, a phone call.
“I am a man, and men want to go out into the wilderness and survive on their own,” my Dad tells me on the phone. “I cannot expect you to understand as a woman. You’re a caregiver, but you don’t know what is best for me.” For the sixth time, we’re replaying the conversation about his dementia diagnosis. For the sixth time, it surprises and saddens him to learn he’s not, in fact, a survivor but a fragile old man.
“Let me read you this paper, Samantha. It says here ‘Mr. Royall needs to use hand grips when toileting and needs assistance with dressing. Please speak loudly and clearly; he may not ask for help.’ They think I’m an invalid, Samantha! I have never felt better.”
“Yes, Daddy. You feel good because you’ve had good care. A year ago, you could barely walk across the room,” I explained. I listened through the silence to hear the gears slipping in his mind.
“Really? Huh. It’s just so strange because I feel fine now.”
“Well, they gave you physical therapy and helped adjust your medications. You are better and safer, physically, because you’re there, Daddy,” I say gently, articulating every end note.
“I never took any medications,” he says, confused. “What did you say I was taking? I don’t remember any of that.”
“Nine different medications, Daddy. Anti-anxiety, blood pressure, pain medication, sleeping pills. It was a lot, but now it’s better.”
“Oh. Well, if you say so. I just don’t remember that at all. Do you have that anywhere in writing?”
“I do, actually. Would you like me to write it down in a letter and mail it to you? So you can read it and remind yourself?”
“No, I don’t see the point. I suppose what I need to do now is just to accept everything,” he says in a moment of wrenching clarity. “But tell me, I just want to know - can I still go to church and have a haircut?”
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Mary’s Dad passed early this morning. We all grew up together and, so, we processed as a group in quick texts and long phone calls.
“I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell me he was so sick? I mean, every conversation was, ‘He’s fine. He’s okay.’ But he wasn’t okay,” my friend Amy said, defeated. I adjusted my ear bud to relieve the pressure. “We talk constantly about our kids. I don’t know why she kept this from me.”
“It’s hard to talk about it,” I offered. “It doesn’t feel productive. We vent about our kids to get answers, to do better. But we talk about our parents to get comfort, to work through feelings. Sometimes there are no answers, no solutions. Maybe saying it out loud would have made it real.”
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I’m not supposed to be a problem solver when it comes to my Dad. There is no end game, no panacea, no right way to die. There is only survival and, if you’re lucky, living. Daddy doesn’t understand that he’s already in the wilderness. THIS is the wilderness. THIS is the solo expedition with my kids strapped to my back and my Dad dragging behind. For a place to rest, I have to stop and build my own chair. But I’m too tired, so I pull everyone in close and keep wandering through the forest.
