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It is a long story. There is ironic humor, the only way I know how to cope.
It took me 14 hours to get back home, a very long day. Dad was attempting to “wait up” for me as my flight got in very late. I guess he kept telling sis and bro that. I am sure that made sis and bro angry, that they weren’t “enough” and that he wanted me there too.
He insisted on “seeing mom” Wed. (before I was there) and they got him over to the funeral home in a wheelchair so he could see mom.
When sis and I took my luggage up to the bedroom, I saw blood splatter on the floor, dried. I asked sis “what is that!?” She replied she didn’t know, and blew me off.
He was laying in bed in the back room when I arrived. In a very awkward position, half flopped on the bed. I was told later that he had had a seizure, lots of shaking. Dave was his “caretaker” during that episode. It took 2 people to get him back in bed.
His eyes bulged out of his head when he saw me, and I assured him it was me. I layed across the bed and gave him a lot of kisses (shouldn’t have done that since he had Thrush). He would fall asleep quickly. I sat in the room and watched him reach over several times to where mom used to lay next to him. He was searching for her. It was touching and sad.
We did have a small chat later, he was mentally all there. He asked about Sidekick, he told me to keep a tally of my costs (typical dad). I asked him what he was thinking about and he said “your farm”. I did have one at one point in my life and I loved it. He knew that. He helped me work on it when they would visit every other year. He fell asleep again.
I sat in the back room, and his eyes would pop open and look at me. I would assure him over and over it was me.
Thurs. is a blur. I helped as much as I could, since I didn’t know how to transfer basically a dead weight body from the bed to the commode. It took 2 people. He was still fighting to be here, and was obstinate to the hired help (threw one out of the room), he was determined to “get up” or to use the commode. I had to run all over the house and yard to find sis, since she knew how to transfer him and I didn’t. I watched my bro and sis attempt to get him from the commode to the bed, bro would fall backwards on the bed with dad at his side. Then they would have to swing the rest of his body around, and use the pee pad to drag him up to the top of the bed. I sat with him, held his had, wiped his brow. The Thrush infection was taking over.
Thursday night late, I got up and checked on him. I found him on the commode, in a dead faint. How the heck did he do that?!! I awoke sis, and the 2 of us had to change his diaper (not a memory I wanted to have) and get him back in bed. No easy task. He was a stubborn man, and somehow got himself up and over to the commode. Sadly the leukemia was ravaging him and he would faint a lot.
Friday was a blur. Sis and bro would always be together in another room “talking”. I was never included in any conversation. No matter where I went in that house I would find them quietly “chatting”, about what I didn’t know. But it was obvious I was being shunned by both of them. They hated me. They hated me for not being there all this time and “helping”. They blamed my “dog”. My 4 1/2 years there meant nothing to either of them.
But I knew dad understood. If he didn’t he would have yelled at me at some point in all this time, but he never did. He could have “cut me out of the will”, but he didn’t. He always said he understood about Sidekicks frail health, and that he was a medically needy dog. Sidekick had given him and my mom thousands of smiles and laughter in the 4 ½ years we were there. Side would always run to find mom when we visited, she was the “food lady”. Later it was dad who became the “food guy”.
Back to Fri……….it was visitation day at the funeral home for mom. We went from 2 to 4. The caretaker came over to give dad a bath so he could be clean to go and visit mom later in the day. He was now fainting if he just sat up, so the wheelchair was no longer viable. We hired an ambulance (hospice covered majority of that cost) to take dad over to the funeral home in between the regular visiting hours, so he could have some time with her.
They took him in through the handicap door and pathway. I came in the front of the building and turned the corner to go into the visiting room. What I saw physically spun my body around. I grabbed my chest and told the funeral lady how hard this was. I pulled myself together.
It was a very dramatic scene. Over the top one might say.
What I saw from the doorway of that room, was my mother dead in a coffin with my dad on a stretcher next to her, each facing the other. It was poignant to say the least.
He talked to mom. He would pat her hands. He would kiss his finger and put it on moms lips, we had to hold him up to do that as he would faint if he sat up. He told her that he had always loved her.
We each took turns standing by dad and talking to him while he looked at and touched mom. We spent about ½ hour there. Before we left, he told mom “I’ll see you soon”.
As the paramedics brought him back in the house, I heard him crack a wisecrack to the paramedics. He was still “with it”. We had to go back to the funeral home from 6-8 for the 2nd visitation.
Sis and I slept in the back room with him. At 1AM I woke up, and my first thought was “it's just too quiet”. I went over to dad and knew he was dead.
It had been just 7 hours since he had told mom “I’ll see you soon”. Who knew how very real that statement was when it was said.
We were up most of the night, hospice had to come and declare him dead. Then we had to wait for the morgue/funeral guys to come and get dad. We got a few hours sleep, but had to be ready at 8:45 AM for the funeral car, because it was the day of mom’s funeral.
At the church we had an hour visitation. I told the funeral people to please tell everyone AT THE DOOR, that dad had died in the night. I sure didn’t want to tell them! But of course they missed one of my cousins, whose first words out of his mouth were “how’s Bill?”……………..uh, ……… “dead”. Thankfully no one else got by the funeral folks at the church door. Sadly my cousins son had brought along a cannon he had made out Leggos to give to dad that day. We buried him with it instead.
More of the story later………………….JeanS