Forgetful Father

My father is forgetting. It started a couple of years ago, gradually, but now it happens more times than I like.  

One day a couple of years ago we were at a funeral service for my great uncle. We saw a woman we knew and her son and daughter in law. We said hello to her and when we got in the car to drive to the repass my sister and I started talking about the woman and her family. My father told us he didn’t know that woman. We were surprised. We didn’t think it could be possible that my dad could forget this woman and her late husband.

“Daddy, don’t you remember Jesse’s sister married Ester’s brother?” we asked.

“No,” he answered.

“But Daddy surely you remember David and Gilbert,” we insisted.

“Kind of,” he answered.

“Do you remember David and Sandra?”

For some reason he did remember them, probably because Sandra was a good friend of our older sister for many years and he had seen them as recently as the baby showers for my kids 8 and 11 years earlier.

However no matter how many different ways we asked him if he remembered David’s parents he did not. He even became irritated by our questions until my sister signaled to me that we should stop asking.

The same thing continued to happen and I started noticing a pattern. My father was forgetting people he didn’t really like in the first place.  My sister and I marveled at this. How cool is that? To get old and forget people you never even liked. It takes out all the stress of not liking people now if you’re not even going to remember them later. Everyone I’ve told about it also think that it’s the best thing to look forward to in our old age.

Unfortunately there’s also a bad side to forgetting. He also forgets to take his medicine sometimes. It’s gotten to the point that I can’t leave him the pill box with the entire week’s worth of pills because he will take the wrong day, or take the night ones in the morning or he’ll take them twice. So now I only leave him the medicine he needs to take. If I’m home I can give him the medicine and watch him take it. If there isn’t any more medicine on the kitchen table he doesn’t take anything twice.

Sometimes he forgets that he has a key to the dead bolt and sits outside until I get home. He’ll insist that he came up to the door and the door was locked and he couldn’t open it. Or I get home and his key is in the door. Other times I’m at home and he comes home from his restaurant and sits outside because he’ll say that no one was home to open the door, even though he has a key, even if he didn’t knock on the door or ring the doorbell or even if my car is obviously parked in the driveway.

Those are the scary times. The times when I worry. When I worry that one day something will happen to him because he forgot to do something. Especially now that I’m working full time. I know that it’s time to either hire a care-giver to come to the house or he needs to go to an adult day care facility but he’s still independent-thinking enough to not agree with that arrangement. He doesn’t want someone else caring for him and he sees an adult day care as one step away from a nursing home. So I struggle. I struggle with making him happy and keeping him safe.

Then we have days and weeks where everything works out fine. There are no mistakes with his medication. He comes and goes freely without any problems or confusion with the door. And I fall into a comfort thinking everything is okay.

It used to be that he was forgetting everything recent but could still remember stories from long ago. Now it’s getting to where he’ll tell me a story he’s told me before but he changes something in the story. He told me a story about a man who lost both arms in an accident with a train and he said that years later his brother saw the man and that he also lost both legs. I ask how and he says he has no idea and that he never asked his brother. But I know that he did and I know that he told me this story a long time ago but now I can’t remember how the man lost his legs either.

I asked him one day if he found it sad that he couldn’t remember people and he says no because he doesn’t know that he doesn’t remember them. He just thinks he doesn’t know them. I ask him, “But what if I tell you that for sure you knew that person. Does it make you sad then that you don’t remember.”

“No,” he answers, “Because I don’t really believe you.”

I find that comforting somehow. To think that at least it doesn’t bother him and it doesn’t make him sad. I find it comforting to think that maybe that’s what happens when we get old. We just forget and we aren’t sad because we don’t think there’s anything to be sad about.

Caring for an Elderly Dad is like Having a Teenager

I keep saying that I will be changing this blog over to strictly a shoe and fashion blog soon and I really want to... At the same time I wonder where I will tell all of my stories. I love this blog because over the last ten years it's given me a place to record all of my life's adventures. I've thought about printing my blog using the Blog2Print program so that I can have a record of it all just in case something were to happen to it. I need to do that...

Daddy, in his early 20s, around 1945

But back to where I will blog my stories.... I don't know. I have another blog that I used to blog at that I retired. I could bring that one back and use that one for strictly stories. Like the stories about my dad and caring for him.

I know I just blogged about sharing a house with him recently. Really there is so much I could say about this man and I could probably blog about him daily.  I love him and he drives me crazy all at the same time. We recently started a project together. I've been recording him saying a Dicho or a saying in Spanish every few days and then I post it on my YouTube channel. We started off pretty consistently then we slacked off. I think we're going to get back on a schedule now. He gets a kick out of doing that.

I am not going to lie. Since my dad moved in with me a year ago my life has completely changed. Having an elderly man like my dad live with me is like having a teenager and a third kid. It reminds me of the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" except that my dad is aging in the right order but mentally he's returning to his youth. I say this because he's an adult man who has led a full life full of a lot of experiences, yet now that he's getting older he's forgetting the most simple things and getting confused easily.

For example, I have had the same cell phone number since 1998. He knows my number by heart and has always called me, even when he didn't live here. But a few weeks ago he completely forgot my phone number. He was supposed to call me to pick him up and he never did because he forgot the number. Yes, I got worried. I wrote my phone number on a small piece of paper and I taped it to the inside of his phone when he got home.

When my dad first moved in with me I felt comfortable giving him a lot of his freedom and I still do.  He'll walk the length of my street to the busy boulevard that runs through our neighborhood and he'll take the bus down to his favorite restaurant on his own. He comes home on his own too and lets himself into the house if I'm not home. If I'm home and I'm not working, or if I can take a break, I take him to his restaurant, but many times he prefers to go on his own and I respect his need for freedom.

Here lately I've been having to keep up with him a lot more and that's where it reminds me of having a teenager. He's old enough and knows enough to take the bus, but now I feel like I need to follow up more. If it's getting dark I call him and ask him where he's at so I can go pick him up. It is an added responsibility to the two young kids I already have.

Two days ago I got home from dinner with a friend fairly early. He was fiddling around the kitchen and I asked him if he had been home long. He replied that he'd been home but he was outside for a while. I asked why and he said it was because he couldn't get the door open. I asked him why and he said he didn't know why but he had eventually unlocked it. There is nothing wrong with our lock. He was just confused because he has a key to the dead bolt and he forgets if the key is for the dead bolt or for the door knob. I learned this recently and apparently even after all the explaining and reminding he still gets confused by the keys and the locks. This worries me...

Then he really freaked me out. He said that he had a scare. I was doing something at the kitchen counter and I turned to him, "What kind of scare??!" I asked.

He went on to tell me how when he got home and couldn't unlock the dead bolt he had decided to go sit on the sidewalk that runs next to my house (I'm on a corner lot.) and while he was sitting there a scrappy looking guy with a black eye came over to him and started talking to him. He asked him for money and my dad gave him a little bit of change that he had in his pocket. Then the guy started asking him if he could give him a glass of water. My dad told him no and the guy proceeded to ask him a couple of more times.

Thank goodness my dad is still alert enough to know that the guy was just trying to gain access into the house. I asked him if he realized that if the guy had gotten into the house with him God only knows what he was capable of doing. He could have beat him and robbed us or worse yet, killed him.

The experience was very scary! I asked him to please refrain from sitting out on the sidewalk next to the street. I have a very big yard, with lawn chairs in an enclosed back yard that is hidden from the street by the garage. There was no reason whatsoever for him to sit on the edge of the street so some bum could come by to harass him.

This also made me realize that I can't let him come home alone any more. I have to either go pick him up or I need to get home when he gets home to make sure he's inside and safe even if that means driving home and then going out again. It is extra work and it takes away even more of my freedom but if I don't do it I take the chance of him sitting out on the sidewalk or something worse.

So yes, it's more work and yes I worry. I especially worry when he forgets simple things because I know that it's leading up to more important things. This morning I woke up after him and found the water running in the bathroom sink for who knows how long while he sat in the kitchen taking a nap. It's not the first time that happens. I've come home and the water has been running.

Later this morning I smelled a real strong smell of bleach and I wasn't sure why. He told me he had just sprayed Shout on the collar of his shirt. I asked him where did he get the Shout bottle and he pointed at the bathroom. He had taken the  Clorox bathroom cleaner and he sprayed his shirt with that, instead of Shout. Even though we had both agreed that we would keep the bottle of Shout behind the hamper so he could spray his shirts with it like he had requested. But he had forgotten already and he grabbed the Clorox spray without even reading the bottle. Just like a kid would do.

He's 90 and I remember that every day. I remember that and I'm grateful that at 90 he can at least do all that he does. I don't have to bathe him. He can walk to the bus stop. He is still stronger than me and can help me change a tire. He can open a jar for me. How many 90 year olds can do that? Not many. I remember this as I read today that the actor James Garner died at 86. He was 4 years younger than my dad. I also remind my dad of this and that God has blessed him with this many years. It isn't something to take for granted either.

Life With My Elderly Father- One Year Later

One year ago on May 3rd  I quit my job of sixteen years, tried to start my own company and my dad came to live with me June 26th. He had been living with my older sister but he was tired of living so far away and I live closer to the places he's familiar with.

Initially I didn't know where I was going to put him. Although I have a 4 bedroom house, one upstairs room is never used. My daughter sleeps in the other upstairs room and eventually I know that I have to clear out that other room to fix it up for my son.

We have two bedrooms downstairs, one was my son's and the other was mine. I chose the easiest route and put my dad in my bedroom and I moved into Seth's room to share with him, thinking that I would eventually switch rooms with him and go back to my own room.

Here we are a year later and I am yet to make the room switch. Some people would say, "But you work from home, how could you not have enough time?" Good question. I don't know how. One of my excuses has often been that by the time that I'm done cleaning all the main rooms and have time  time to get to the bedrooms I have start all over again because the other rooms get dirty again.

We know that that's just a procrastinator's excuse. Here recently I have been incentivizing the kids to keep the main living quarters clean and it's actually been working fairly well for the past two weeks. That is a record for us! No more excuses that I have to start over cleaning these rooms if we can keep them fairly clean every day.

SO this weekend the kids are at their dad's house and I told myself I was going to work on the two downstairs bedrooms to start the switch. The whole day went by and I got one thing on my list accomplished. ONE. Cleaning some things in the kitchen. Well, at least it was one, and really three because I did three things in the kitchen, but it wasn't in any way close to the bedrooms.

Tomorrow I will try again. Even if I just get one thing done, like clearing out the closet in Seth's room for my dad's things. He now shares with me in my room because I have a closet and an armoire but even then we don't have enough room, thus the reason I have 2 closets for me to begin with.

If keeping the main part of the house this clean feels this good I have to imagine how great it is going to feel to finally get my dad in Seth's room and to get my own bedroom back. I've felt like I'm staying over at someone else's house for over a year because I'm sleeping in another room, in another bed.  All my clothes, shoes, and dresser things are in my room.

I have to get back into my room so I can feel balanced. My life has been out of balance for so long. It's time.

Cleaning My Childhood Home

The summer didn’t go at all as planned. I quit my job and planned to relax the whole month of May until the children were out of school. First things first, I put myself out there and I let people know that I had quit my job and that I was going to start my own business. The calls and the requests for meetings poured in. I was flattered but also a little overwhelmed.

 

 

In June my father threw a big curveball at me when he decided to move in with me. I wasn’t prepared and I’m still not organized. He had been living with my sister since January after a serious illness at the end of December 2012.

He wasn’t getting along very well with my sister. He was only allowed to walk in the house and the back yard. So one day in June he decided to sneak out, jump the low end of the back fence, and he walked to the donut shop all alone. Not a good thing, but I think he had reached the end of his rope. He felt like he was confined to her house, which who are we kidding, he was. That was the beginning of a 2 day downward spiral that resulted in him calling me and asking me to go get him.

So that’s how at the end of June I found myself taking care of him.

He had only been here for a couple of weeks when in early July we received an unexpected request to rent his house. We were not prepared for this in the least.

My mom passed away in 2000 and at that time the sisters had all taken different knick knacks of my mom’s and my eldest sister’s that we cherished. My sister had passed away in 1995 and my mother had many of her things, including her jewelry.

Other than the jewelry and a few things, we didn’t really go through the house and we didn't give it a good cleaning. Except for that one time when my dad cleaned out the attic and he asked each of us to come by to review the boxes and to take what belonged to us. That’s when I found my Kindergarten workbook.

But to clean the house, really clean the house, room by room, to empty it out and to prepare it for someone else, wasn’t something we had done.

My father, being elderly and not really understanding how things work acted as if it were not a big deal. I knew better.

I went to his house for eight days straight cleaning 4-8 hours a day, depending on the day and what else I had going on. My sister came in for four of those 8 days to help. We hired a woman to help us one day with some heavy scrubbing and I took the kids to help me on another day to move out all the trash.

What my sister and I found in those days that we cleaned was incredible. My mother kept everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. We wondered if she had an obsession with graduation and wedding invitations because she had so many! She had invitations from weddings from the 1960s through the 1990s. She also had income tax returns from the 1960s. She had all of those organized by year very neatly, but she had them all.

My parents were Jehovah's Witnesses so they had Watchtowers from the 1940s and almost every convention program from the 1940s through the 1990s. My father had even added some from the 2000s in there for good measure.

Among the memories that she kept I also found very touching pieces as well. She had an envelope with cards that she received when I was born. She had an envelope with a decree from our then city mayor, Louis Welch declaring February 11 Loida Day. She had my original birth certificate signed by my doctor, Dr. Boone. She had a folder with all of my report cards, first grade through fifth grade and some other grades in middle school and high school. The folder was also filled with every certificate and award I ever received.  I felt nostalgic and I missed her so much when I saw these things.

There were some items that we found that meant more to my sister, because they reminded her of things that happened before I was born and before I even existed.

My sister found a letter to my sisters that apparently my mother had written from the Valley. My sister was too young when the letter was written and she can’t remember why my mother had traveled. She said it was around the time she had lost our brother who was born premature. I wondered if she had needed an escape and had gone down there for a little while to get better. It was written when my sisters were young and a couple of years before I was born.

The letter is such a telling tale of how well my mother knew my sisters. She gives each one of them advice on how to act while she was gone and as she addresses each one she points out their challenging personality traits. For example she tells my sister, who was the youngest at the time, “don’t be jumping around like a monkey and don’t hurt yourself like you often do.” My sister cracked up laughing when she read it.

There were also many things that I knew and that I remembered more than my sister because I lived with my parents the longest. For example, when my mother died I wanted a couple of pieces of jewelry that she bought when I was with her. I remembered how she debated between the cocktail diamond ring and a sofa at the jewelry counter at Montgomery Wards. I went with her on her shopping quest for a blue aquamarine ring in Mexico. I’m happy to say I have both of those pieces.

This time as we cleaned we came across my mother’s molcajete. I told my sister I wanted it even though I knew it was actually her second molcajete and not the original one I had grown up seeing her use. I remember the day that she finally bore a hole of the bottom of the old one and how she complained about the time it would take to wear this new one down smooth enough to use.

It was a melancholy feeling as well as a victorious feeling when I finished cleaning the house on the last day that our new tenant prepared to move in. I looked around at all the empty rooms that held so many memories for me.

When my mom died my then husband and I agreed to move in with my dad for a while, until he became accustomed to the idea of living alone. They had been married for 52 years at the time of my mom's death.  We lived there for almost two years with him and my daughter was born during that time. She spent the first few months of her life in those rooms and I nursed her in the old blue chair we were throwing out.

Since I moved out eleven years ago the house didn’t remind me of my mother any more. My father had collected junk in the front room, that had been my bedroom when I was a little girl and later a dining room when my mother was still alive.

Now that the house was clean it brought back so many memories of my mother. As I cleaned each room it reminded me more and more of the feeling in those rooms when she was alive. I knew that she would have been very happy to know that we were helping my dad and I think she would have been happy that we were renting the house to our front door neighbor's daughter. She always like them a lot.  

Before she died my mother made me promise that I would take care of my dad. No doubt she knew what a challenge that would be and she had a feeling he would live a long life, unlike her.  I know I’m not the perfect daughter, but I’m doing my best, and I think my mom would be happy knowing that.