Windshield Time (drafted 11/18/11; don't know why I didn't post it)

Well, it's been another interesting turn of events. As I sit here alone at home after another week of being on the road, and on my birthday, I felt it was time to post here. A LOT has happened since my last post (as usual), and I am still processing it all. And the long stretches of driving this week (aka "Windshield Time") have coalesced some things in my mind.

First and foremost, Dad did not last the year as he had hoped/expected. In the middle of September, his complaints of not having any energy and sleeping all the time accelerated. This ultimately led to a week-long hospitalization - a time during which it became apparent that there were no more interventions available to help Dad live well. We had many conversations about his wishes and, as that week transpired, it became clear that there was only one decision to be made.

So, on Friday, September 23, Dad had his final dialysis treatment and was returned to the his assisted living facility. We knew that my brother would be coming to town the following Monday, and the thought was that he would be able to come and spend time with Dad before his body finally shut down.

Over the weekend, hospice aided in keeping Dad comfortable. I fed him several meals and we had a few minutes of lucid conversation during that time. I reminded Dad that Bro was coming, and he seemed comforted by that.

Monday came, and Dad was mostly unresponsive. Bro arrived about 4:30 PM, and Dad and he had some good time together. After his alone time with Dad, we (Bro, me, hospice, and the floor manager) convened in at the foot of Dad's bed and were discussing options for Bro staying with Dad. The hospice nurse interceded and said we needed to pay attention to Dad. With Bro on one side, and me on the other, we watched Dad take his last breath and quietly pass.

It was weird. I have heard stories of folks who have said that a loved one waited for someone to arrive before "letting go". I have no doubt of that now.

luv ya dad!! (written 10/20/11; somehow not posted)

A fortnight after my last post, dad passed quietly in his sleep. Perhaps that's a misnomer - he passed quietly knowing that my brother and I were both there with him, each of us holding one of his hands.

That aspect of his death has been intriguing to me. I have heard told of those close-to-death waiting for someone to arrive before letting go. As a Type-A, I have been skeptical of such claims. No longer. Dad passed on a Monday; we asked for dialysis to be performed one last time on Friday in the hopes that my Bro would make it into town one last time to say goodbye.

So, Dad received dialysis Friday and was transferred back to his apartment on Friday afternoon. Most of Saturday is a loss, though I am lucky enough to feed Dad a small portion of one of his favorite meals - mac and cheese.

Sunday is a total loss in terms of getting Dad to eat anything. He sipped some water and ate some odds-and-ends, but most of the day he is unresponsive - at least to any type of existence we are experiencing together. At one point, he is barking orders, and I ask if he's practicing with his artillery battery. Tersely, he responds, "Yes". A few more barked orders, and a softening of his features follows. I ask - "Did you get the target?". His expression broadens to a smile - "Yep, we sure did."

Monday comes, and Dad is mostly unresponsive. Several times, I remind Dad that my Bro is expected to arrive in the afternoon. Dad hangs on gamely. Bro arrives about 4:30, and spends some private time with Dad. After that, he and the Floor Manager and I are at the foot of Dad's bed talking about options for the evening. Keep in mind, that just an hour or so earlier, one of Dad's nurses has estimated that Dad will be OK for another 24-48 hours.

By 5:30, Bro, and Floor Manager, and I are at the foot of Dad's bed chatting, and the Hospice nurse interuppts us saying - "the time is soon".

Bro and I broke off conversation, each of us taking one of Dad's hands. Two breaths later, he stopped breathing. I checked his pulse, and he was gone.

So, do the dying wait for those most special to them wait for them to be at their bedside to finally relent? I was skeptical. I am no longer. And I am blessed.

Luv you Dad. And Mom. Your sunset tonight was spectacular. I expect I will always recognize you in the sunsets.

Legacy

There was a time, some years ago, when I came to hate this word.  Loathe it.  Despise it like no other word in the English language.

You see, I was on the "purchased" end of a corporate acquisition, and the term "legacy" was used to describe which company you came from - we'll call them Legacy X for the acquiring company, and Legacy Y for the us, the acquired.

Whenever (almost) everybody from Legacy X found out that you were a Legacy Y employee, you could hear the disdain creep into their voice and see a corner of their mouth curl into a sneer.  We were the vanquished, and we were to be kept in our place both literally and figuratively.  I got so tired of it that, when asked, I would respond - "I am a Company X employee, as are you.  Does it really matter where we come from - we work for the same company now, don't we?"

But, as I realized earlier this week, I had held onto that hatred of that word even though it had been used in an entirely different, and entirely more pleasantly meaningful context, since then.  As it turns out, I had let it negatively affect a part of my life that it shouldn't have, and have since not realized or appreciated its effect on me.

You see, over the past several years prior to my Dad's death, he had used that term to describe both me, but more directly, my son - the only direct descendant of his now, and likely ever.  While I knew what he meant and appreciated it at some level, I always kind of mentally cringed when I heard him use the word because of the prior experience.  I secretly wished he would change and use a different term, but he never did and I never made an issue of it.

For whatever reason and using whatever stream-of-consciousness method I used to get there, in the shower one morning this week, I came to fully realize what he was saying, to let go of the hatred of the word, and begin to think through and understand - really consider and understand - the implications.

Mom and her sister had a total of 4 boys.  Of those, only my wife and I had a child to carry on any bit of that side of the family.  While my brother could theoretically still have a child, from a realistic perspective I put that chance at 0.  So on that side of the family, he truly is the legacy.

Dad had one sister who was 17 years his senior, and they were never close - and there are other mitigating factors, which will not be discussed at this time.  She had a son (who died fairly young due to a medical condition) and a daughter, who has two sons of her own.  While we have maintained contact, we have never been very close.  And Dad never viewed them as much as family as others in his life.

So Sparky really is a "Legacy" for our family - on many levels.  Unexpectedly, I have come to consider and accept that fact in ways I didn't expect.

Peeling the onion some more.  How long will this take??  (Have I said that I can be a very impatient person sometimes??????)

Trolls

Based on comments to my last post here, I guess I'm expected to be more curmudgeonly. Something has occurred over the past couple of days on FB that I need to just vent about and that should effectively address that concern.

A FB friend that is generally just a "gamer" friend, posted about having little patience for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, citing an article that I agree was something pretty egregious. One of the comments (I'll call this person commenter 1) to the article noted how all media news outlets, save Fox News which is by far the most centrist news organization.

Although I personally know nobody on this particular line of comments, I felt I needed to comment about the fact that a "news" channel that has the tag line trying to convince you that they are "Fair and Balanced", is anything but. I also pointed out that Roger Ailes, President and CEO of the network, is an ultra-conservative so, calling his network "centrist" was an interesting idea. I further suggested that getting your news from multiple sources, including international news agencies, helped provide additional perspective. And that doing your own primary research, if it was something that important to you that you wanted independent confirmation, was also a good thing.

A third party Troll starting chiming in, with the usual Conservative repugnance. Called people who were involved in the OWS proceedings thieves, whiners, and a "cancer" on society - the typical name-calling and stereotyping of the far Right. He then went off on a traditional supply-sider rant about business being the only savior of the US economy and society as a whole.

When another commenter (commenter #2) noted that she doesn't necessarily agree with the OWS movement, but that she could understand where they were coming from, Troll went off. Since commenter #2 didn't address the financial issues, she was bashed as an unknowing idiot.

So I laid out undebateable history - after Clinton's admin, we had a budget surplus; after Bush's, we had the largest deficit ever recorded (not including off-budget war expenses) and a national banking and economic crisis all caused by policy changes in banking and real estate oversight. Obama put the war expenses back on-budget, which has resulted in the debt crises that seem to happen weekly (as evidenced by the debt-ceiling skirmishes), along with the various stimulus efforts made by the government of a failed Bush economy policy - and how the banks are sitting on money meant as the primary stimulus contributed to the problem.

To which Troll responded that business was the only savior of our economy. He addressed none of the historical fact presented - his reasoning for bashing on commenter #2.

To which I re-emphasized the lack of fiscal discipline during the Bush administration formed the foundation for our current problems, and cited some of the positive things that came out of the New Deal (the closest historical time to where we are now), with its providing many, many jobs during the worst economic time in US history, and led to the creation of both the Social Security Administration and SEC (among notable failures, as well).

To which Troll responded that the New Deal was an epic fail on all counts and was a completely fascist attempt to remake our American democracy. In his (revisionist) historical view, the Depression was made no better by the New Deal, and that WWII was the only thing that brought about a restored economy.

Well, I didn't take kindly to the implication that I was a fascist. I suggested he should withdraw from the Social Security system since it was such a failure, and that I was done commenting because a reasoned debate of the issues was not, and would not, occur because Troll was unable to do anything but name-call and be dismissive of points that did not fit with his world view.

To which Troll started talking about people from Neptune being admitted to Yale or some such thing to illustrate some point or other. (I have read the exact comments a dozen times now, and I have no flipping idea what point he's trying to illustrate.)

Um, excuse me? What does that have to do the OWS movement and the underlying economic problems that we are enduring?

Typical Far Right Bull Shit - When you can't effectively, cogently, and accurately refute facts because you believe the patently wrong revisionist history you are spoon-fed by Fox and other right-wing outlets, then you must change the subject, name-call, and scream incoherently to drown out all other comment.

Are these people REALLY that deluded?

Christmas Eve, 2011

Well, much has occurred since the last post here – my lumbar spine has continued to require treatment and physical therapy in an attempt to minimize pain and stabilize the spine to forestall surgery (with varying levels of success); continued stress at work to grow the business (my territory did grow by over 50%, so I’m pretty happy with that) but while limiting traveling spend; however, the most notable event was Dad’s passing on 9/26.

Dad had very much wanted to make it to Christmas one more time, but was physically unable to. So, this season has been bittersweet – trying to revel in the joy that Advent and Christmas bring while being sad at the same time that Dad can’t be here as he had so much wanted.

Don’t get me wrong – I firmly believe that Dad is in a much better place now (more on that in a minute). With his and my aunt’s passing this year, our family is definitely shrinking. In my extended family, I have one first- and one second-cousin that I maintain some level of contact with. My brother is but a phone call away, but he’s in NYC and not exactly around the corner. This year, I am more thankful than ever that I have my lovely bride and our son to spend time with. And I look forward to spending time with friends and family from L’s side. But I’ve still been of a mixed mind about my own internal sense of well-being and missing both Dad and Mom.

Since I haven’t been traveling so much, and have found myself with a certain amount of free time now and again, I have been starting to work through the mound of belongings and family heirlooms that have been piling up since before Mom passed. As it happened, I came upon a treasure trove of correspondence between M and D from the period from when they were dating, through their engagement, and just into the Christmas season that first year they were married.

Now, I considered for a bit about reading such personal correspondence – would there be information in there that I really didn’t need to find out about them?? But I ultimately chose to read through the foot-high stack of correspondence looking for insights.

Am I glad I did. I have gained new insights into both of my parents’ frames of mind during this period of time in their lives, and this has put some framework around what I have observed during the last 4-5 years (and well past beyond that).

The story of their meeting is well documented, but will be summarized again here as it serves as the jumping off point for some of the insights culled from this trove of correspondence.

My father, in his duties working for the railroad, rode the rails weekly traveling to NYC, Buffalo, Elkhart, Chicago, and other cities. Mom and Dad met on the train to Chicago during one of his trips for work; Mom was on the train to break off an engagement and return the ring. By my Dad’s own accounts, it was love at first sight (for him). He became enthralled with this complicated, savvy, and somewhat mysterious woman in a way he never had before. But he had an uphill battle on his hands.

You see, this was not Mom’s first time down this road. She married a man shortly out of high school who mentally and emotionally abused her, and whom she divorced in relatively short order. While I’m not sure how long she was engaged to the man she was traveling to Chicago to break off with, at that point she was 24 and the relationship with her fiancée had apparently gone at least as badly as her failed marriage. So, at least at this point, she’s at least 0-for-2 in serious relationships, and has developed a healthy distrust of men.

And she meets this guy on the train who seems gentlemanly enough but, coming off a bad engagement, she takes it slow. Inasmuch as he wants to fast-track this relationship, he is limited in his ability to do so because he’s traveling so extensive. So he embarks on a concerted, nearly daily correspondence, which results in weekends together and their eventual marriage.

So, while he was at a point in his life where he was dedicated to his career in business as taught through discipline in the military, and thought he would only be married in a “union of convenience” – Dad finds true love and decides that Mom is then, and always will be, #1 in his life from then on. Through the various barriers Mom throws up, Dad persists and finally wins her hand in marriage.

How does this all relate back to my belief that Dad’s in a much better place?

First, after Mom passed, Dad seemed happy enough, but something was always missing. He made several attempts to make connections at some level with women of various ages to replace that relationship with Mom. Those attempts either never materialized to anything substantial, or they created other issues.

Second, as his health continued to fail, I believe he gave up on trying to make another connection here on earth. The one and only love of his life was Mom, and there would be no other. In hindsight, I now understand that he came to believe that to continue to fight (and fight he did for years!!) through his health battles here had become fruitless, and the time came to be back with Mom. So, with the closest of his family in the room with him, he let go. And they are back together.

How has reviewing all this correspondence helped to put my mind at rest?

Some context first – I never saw my parents show an extraordinary amount of affection for one another, nor did I ever see them argue but at the most surface level, as a youngster.

So confirming this very deep connection in the earliest stages of their relationship through this correspondence leads me to believe that, in the end, when all else falls away at the end of our physical existence, these deep connections will endure.

Peace, and Merry Christmas.