My Father

Nov. 7th, 2004 08:35 am
qos: (Never Surrender)
[personal profile] qos
I actually read this entry in my sister's journal after I posted my previous entry.

As most of you know, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's last year. The symptoms are becoming more obvious now: a heaviness in his legs as he walks is the most obvious.

But he is visiting my sister right now, and she writes that he asked her 5 times in one day where her second dog came from.

Our father is a very bright man, someone who pays attention and remembers things. He has two Ph.D.'s and he is currently serving as chairman of the board of trustees for a major HMO. This is not like him. And because he is a man whose mental brilliance is so much a part of who he is -- or at least how we understand him -- it is especially unnerving.

Ok. Scary. Scary in the most primitive of ways.

Our maternal grandmother developed Alzheimer's when we were in high school, and she lived with us for a couple of years as the disease slowly consumed her. It affected both my sister and me very deeply, and I think that since then we both have always been afraid, deep in the backs of our minds, that it will happen again: to our parents, and then to us.

I'd like to ascribe his absent-mindedness about her dog to the fact that he has never been a fan of her pets, and that he simply doesn't care about where this one came from, not really. But there have been moments during the past few months when I've seen the same thing happen.

I don't want to lose my father. I particularly do not want to watch him decline into Alzheimer's.

I "dealt" with my grandmother's condition by ignoring her existence, insofar as was possible. But I'll be damned if I do that again. One of the reasons I am doing what I am in the career/vocational field is that I have had a deep, gut sense for several years now that my parents were going to need me right here, not off in the midwest or east coast pastoring one of the few congregations in my denomination. It was right and proper for my sister to move when and where she did. But I believe that part of my calling is to be the one who is here for my parents.

I don't feel any better than I did when I posted the Hamlet quote a few minutes ago. But I feel less lost than I did. Last night, I really was thinking that it wouldn't matter much if I died. There wasn't a lot of point to my life, and certainly no real joy to it. (This is not something I've felt for a very long time.) But this prospect of my father's illness getting much worse than I had been willing to contemplate at least gives me an "enemy" to fight, some purpose bigger than myself to focus on. My own life, which seems so small and gray and joyless right now, suddenly is being snapped back into proper perspective.

To those of you who pray: please remember my family and me right now. I think we're going to need it.
I know I need it right now. I just started to cry, and I feel very much alone.
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