Last week, my father spent five nights in the hospital.
It was not the first time this year he was there, and I have
no doubt it will not be the last. He is
84. He is diabetic. He has had colon cancer removed. He has a heart issue that can best be
described as failure from an unknown cause.
He has severe back pain from years and years of climbing in and out of a
dump truck and using the heavy foot-operated pedals to do his job.
He was a heavy smoker for almost 60 years, quitting only
after his heart doctor could not hear his heart with a stethoscope through the
congestion in his lungs. I think that might have something to do with all the
shortness of breath, but no one wants to say that because he quit 13 years ago,
and no one wants to admit that crappy choices for decades could have anything
to do with right now.
And right now, well, that is all we are concerned with. Comfort, prolonging, and more comfort.
Our conversations while I visited him in the hospital
usually revolved around his medical condition, his medications, and his daily
routine. And baseball. Always baseball. So while looking up the scores for the day
before’s games, we talked about the nose bleeds. While comparing pitching stats, we talked about
sugar levels. While watching the play
from third for out number two, we discussed how to get in and out of the
shower, and if we need to install grab bars, or ramps for the outside stairs.
He did not want to have any of these conversations. I don’t
blame him, I didn’t want to have them, either.
We will need to have more because my mom is exhausted, and worried, and
couldn’t possible lift him to help him get to the bathroom if it comes down to
that. Right now he is home, and
stable. But he is tired, so tired.
In the midst of all this conversation about health and
baseball, the one thing my dad did want to talk about was me, my kids, and
what, in his opinion, I am not doing right.
It took all my effort not to yell at him, or walk out.
Instead, I listened to him say that my house repairs are behind, my yard work
and fence needed to be taken care of and made presentable, and how he had not,
in his entire life, ever taken more than a two-week a year vacation.
All those things are true.
I probably should finish putting in my baseboards, and replacing the
sink and toilet in the Master bath. I probably
should pull out the dead plants in my front yard, and take the ugly watering
hoses to the dump. I probably should
care that I don’t have a lawn, nor will I be winning any Yard-of-the-Month
awards from my city. I actually feel blessed that they have not ticketed me for
leaving my garbage cans on the street for days after the regular pick up. What is not true is that I have any regrets
that I take my kids on vacation to wherever we can go at every opportunity I
have.
I knew, as my dad was complaining about my yard, and my
garage, and about my vacation choices, that he was not really looking for me to
say anything back. He wasn’t even really
mad at me about what I was doing, and why.
I don’t think he was really expecting me to suddenly like yard work (I haven’t
in 48 years, so not like I will be starting that up any time soon), or for me
to put a priority on painting my hallway. I will get to it, eventually. I always do.
And while I know that
he thinks I should probably not be taking my kids to Kansas City in July (our
next road trip) in favor of spending the money on a weed-whacker and a good
handyman, I don’t think it was about me at all.
I think the entire conversation was about him. About his decisions. And about him being scared that I was judging
his choices, for a perfect yard and no vacation, as something missing in my life,
and maybe, in the long run, something he missed in his, by doing something different.
I will admit, I made that choice a long time ago, to not be
him. Not because of any judgment I have
that his choices were wrong, but just that I wanted something different with my
children. I am grateful for the home and
the security of my parent’s house. I
never wanted for anything, all of the basic needs taken care of, though we were not rich. I had clothes and food. I had a bike. I always had gifts and parties for birthdays
and Christmas. I also have zero memory
of a movie with my parents, or a museum with them, or a trip to a national
monument or place of interest.
Every year we went on vacation. Two weeks of camping, and either fishing or
hunting. The camping involved a trailer
and cooking every meal. The fishing was
trout, either stream-fishing or fly-fishing.
The hunting was deer or boar, but since I never went out with my dad, I
don’t actually know what that was about.
My experience of it (contrary to the memories my brother is sure to
have) is that I sat around a lot, bored because I never brought enough books or
paper or art supplies, in the dust and heat of whatever remote campsite near a
lake that we were at. I should sound
more grateful that I was allowed nature, and any form of recreation, but I feel
like I missed something.
The memories I have of vacations with my dad is of him, as I
watched from the bank, as he fly-fished.
I have one intense memory of a wasp nest swarming because we parked
our trailer a little too close. I remember the rifle shot that echoed from the hillside
as my father and brother went after a deer that was illegally shot by someone
else, and was now suffering and dying because of it. They never fired a shot, but the sound is
still in my ears, and I am still a slight bit frightened by the memory some 35
years later.
I have never been anywhere else with my parents. No skiing trips. No drive-ins. No city cafes.
We never took a ferry. We never
went on a train. We never took a trolley,
or a gondola, or a horse. We did the
same thing, every year, once a year, for as long as I can remember. There is no judgment about if this is right or
wrong. It is just is. I wondered why the memory I have of losing
a fish from the line one year is so strong , when it struck me that it is just because
there were no other memories to hold on to that could make this small one less significant.
I picked something different for how I spend my time with my
kids. We have been to Yosemite, and
Washington DC. We have taken a train to
Denver and a plane to Seattle. We have
visited monuments and historical places, and taken ferries to offbeat islands
with weird little artist’s colonies. We have
gone to plays and movies and festivals and concerts. We have road-tripped, and accidentally met
potters who gave us pieces of clay to play with, and poets who wrote haiku for
us about the color of our shirts, and musicians who sang us songs they just
made up, and laughed at all the silliness of the moments as we let ice cream
melt on our chins from homemade stands on the side of the road.
So back to my dad. I did
not point out to him that I was making specific different choices based almost solely
on the lack of choices I had as a child.
That would have been cruel. And I am not cruel, I love my dad. So I sat there, and listened as he planned
how I was going to have to buckle down and get my lawn planted, and how I should
not be driving my kids half way across the country in the heat of summer. I knew he was not judging me with his
words. He was, in fact still taking care
of me, like he did when I was little, knowing maybe that his time to do this is
getting short. He didn’t want
compliance. He wanted validation that
his choices would be remembered.
I get that, dad, don’t worry. If there is nothing else we can ever say to
each other amidst all the talk of medicine and home safety, we will always have
baseball. As a matter of fact, on that
road trip you don’t want me to take to Kansas City this summer we will be going
to a Royals game. Stay out of the hospital
long enough for me to tell you all about it when we get back, so we can have
some more memories together, with baseball at the center. I'll bring the Crackerjacks.
