I wrote this Sunday before last, but got too upset while writing it to finish. Even coming back to it to edit and finish starting the damn waterworks again. But, I need to post this, it’s cathartic.
It’s been a strange year. For the most part, not a bad year, but a strange one. It’s been like a rollercoaster… the highs are breathtaking, and when it shifts to plummet to the basin of fate, it will take your breath away.
Some good friends of mine have lost their parents this year, 3 in the past 3 months. Very dear friends, M…Drummer Mark… I also know two dear friends who are in the process of their losing one of their parents right now, one of which is Gigi, who is traveling the world with her fiesta father. He refuses chemo, he’s going to live it up, right up…well, you know.
For the first time, I feel like that, too.
My father is not “sick” per sey. But, his life has been deeply effected by a series of tiny strokes he had in 2004. The interesting thing is that, the effects that have taken a toll on him have been gradual, not instantaneous. After the stroke, dad was still motoring on up to the local country music dance hall (where most knew him by name) and out-dancing men three times his junior. Little young twerty somethings would line up to dance with him, giving me dirty looks. “Who are you?” They’d ask…and I would laughingly tell them I was his Daughter. Originally, the stroke did slow him down a bit…he was no longer up there 2 to 3 nights a week, but he still made his appearance at least once a weekend.
Over the last four years, my father’s damaged brain have slowly caused his right hand and leg into mutanous limbs. Spasms cause his leg to be in a constant state of tense, toes crapming, some toes going suddenly up while the others go down. down. His hand slowly became more and more restricted in it’s movement, and liek a cruel joke, arthritis seized it as it’s prey.
These small things might seem so minuscule to other people, and I understand that. I have dear friends that have watched a parent waste away to cancer or another illness; I cannot compare my paint to theirs. But, to watch the deterioration of a stubborn, independant, proud man into someone who cannot walk across the living room without stumbling has been difficult, and left a profound mark on me.
My visit to my father’s yesterday was more upsetting to me than it has been in years. When he stumbles, I always ask, “Are you ok”,” which is unfortunate since I detest that same question directed at me more than once in a short period. Lately, he has just looked at me, smirked, and said “NO!” ON the way into Walmart, when this pattern played out…stumble…quesion…smirk, his answer was a cynical “They call these the golden years, you know.”
Aboput an hour before I left, he fell against a chair, and trembled so violently with the effort to upright himself that I thought I was witnessing a seizure. His mouth went slack as he trembled and pushed, his whole body quaking violently with the effort.
Suddenly, he was up, eyes focused, mouth set back in the firm line you can usually find it in. “Amy, What?? I’m fine, I lost my balance.”
I cried all the way home, and into the night.
The coffee, the diesel, the methamphetamine 