Dad.
It's been, what, two and a half years since the shit hit the fan? I remember that day like it was yesterday...
I was working tech support. Not yet a team leader, let alone a manager...just a regular old tech support engineer. My phone rang and it was Mom. She said, "Dad's on his way to the hospital."
I wasn't sure what was going on. Were you hurt? Was it serious? What?
She went on to explain that you had "run away". Specifically, the two of you had been out for a ride and you had started acting strangely during the ride home. You had seemed nervous.
When you got home, Mom had gone into the bathroom and you had taken the opportunity to run out the back door and over to the neighbor's house, where you proceeded to bang on her door yelling that "she was trying to kill you; please call the police".
So she did...and when your other son answered, he knew something was up.
The police came, and they took you away in an ambulance. At which point Mom called me. I asked her where they were taking you and immediately left work. I told her I'd be right there...
...and so began the worst 26 hours of my life.
I arrived at the hospital and proceeded to the ER where they had put you. What I walked into was a world of shit.
For the next 26 hours, me, Mom and various other close family members stood by your side while you alternately knew us and didn't know us. While you alternately knew you were in the hospital and thought you were either on a ship or in a trucking depot. While we had to have Mom leave the room so that we could call her on her cell phone so you could talk to her because that was the only way you would recognize her. While you looked me directly in the eye and said "If you do nothing else for me as long as I live, get me out of here" and when I said I couldn't, replied with "You're such a disappointment." It was horrific, but I could not leave Mom there to go through this by herself; so I stayed.
After the 26 hours in the ER and Mom losing her mind on the hospital staff for leaving us there for so long, you were finally transferred to a mental health hospital. I went home, because after 26 hours of what we had just experienced, I could take no more. When I got home, I lost it like I had never lost it before. I was unintelligible and without Shannon, I may have broken. I guess 26 hours of watching your father coming in and out of awareness, recognizing and then not recognizing his wife of 30+ years, and telling you exactly how disappointed in you he is...repeatedly...tends to drain a person.
Once I surfaced from my own personal meltdown and squared things up with work, I went to visit you. You were confused. You didn't know why you were there, nor how long they were going to keep you. This was the first of two stays at the hospital.
They experimented. The goal was to find a particular drug cocktail which kept you calm and not paranoid. The big problem was that you didn't recognize Mom all the time. Every so often, you would see her as some evil woman at work as opposed to the woman who had given you her love and patience for 36 years of her life. This needed to be taken care of before you could go home.
After about a month, they thought that they had figured out the correct cocktail and they sent you home. Things were...OK for a while. We knew that they weren't going to get better, but they didn't get worse for a good amount of time.
Then you ran away again.
So...back you went. By this time, I had grow pretty familiar with the roads into and around the hospital so visiting was easy. But seeing you in that place took its toll. I think that second time in was really when it really came home that we had lost you.
Fast forward a year and several months. We've gotten into a bit of a routine. I come over every Thursday to stay with you so that Mom can go to work without having to pay someone to watch you. During the other days of the week, you go to a day program...which you believe is going to work.
Some Thursdays are pretty good...you tend to sleep a lot. Those are the easiest days.
The days when you're active and awake are the hardest...and that's one of the more depressing things about this whole situation.
We have good Thursdays and bad Thursdays. Some days you just sit on your chair and listen to music all day. Other days, you're trying to find the phantom that's trying to break into the house or your body is betraying you in the bathroom. Either way, it's difficult to watch. I can't imagine what Mom is going through every other day of the week.
I'm not sure how Mom does it, to be honest. She's got to be superhuman. She deals with this almost 24/7. I spend a day with you and I'm a wreck...and even though that's a totally human reaction...I hate myself for it. If there's one positive thing that I've taken from this entire shitty situation it's this: Mom has taught me more about love and commitment in the last two years than I had learned in my entire lifetime.
I wish I had something better to say to your many well-wishers. People ask me constantly: how's your dad doing? I have no good answer.
Saying that you're good would be a lie. Telling the actual truth would accomplish nothing more than depressing someone who was just trying to express kindness. So I try to meet in the middle. My general answer to that question is, "He's OK...not great, but eh..." or something along those lines. This usually leads to an awkward conversation about how terrible it is that something like this has happened to someone as young as you. I agree and thank them for their concern and assure them that there's nothing that anyone can do.
You have lots of friends...so I have that conversation a lot.
I don't know, Dad. There are a few things I wish we could have settled before, well, this. Plenty of people get the chance to square up with their parents before the end. Unfortunately, we were denied that...with a nice long runway to continuously remind us.
I have regrets, sure. There are things I wish we could have settled and, if circumstances were different, we may have been able to. But that ship has sailed, as they say, so there's no use dwelling on what might have been.
All I know is that we're watching you get progressively worse, and it sucks...and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. We, quite literally, have to sit here and watch you get worse until you die...and that's just not fair.
My proudest moments these days come when I watch my kids with you. They know you're sick, but they don't act like it. To them, you're still just Grampy. Sure, Grampy's pretty quiet and gets confused and needs a little more help than he used to, but you're still Grampy and they still love you. That they treat you no differently than they used to gives me immeasurable pride. And the knowledge that they will likely remember you as the playful, joyful and loving grandfather that you were gives me some peace.
Things aren't easy...but we can't pick the cards. And we all have to play the hand we're dealt.
I love you, and miss you, Dad.
