Not Knowing: Grandmom's Story, Part 4

Continued from Part 3 - Grandmom's Story 

One of the things that my dad worried about the most when he was sick and even before then was his mom, who, since the death of my grandfather many years before, had been living alone in a small town in southern Alabama until she suffered a stroke at the age of 87.

My daughters and my dad, with Grandmom, Sept. 2010

For all of my life, I'd thought of my grandmother as one of the most fiercely independent individuals I knew, a person whose goal it was to leave the earth a better place than she'd found it, without asking for much help or (as she put it) "without burdening" others and without using anything as an excuse for not doing her part to help others in need.  Grandmom has perhaps one of the most interesting life stories I've ever heard, with lots of adventures and even more challenges faced along the way.  She pinched pennies, cut corners, and made due for all of her life, but, a deeply religious person, she never failed to tithe or to give of her time when her church or someone in her community needed assistance.  She was well-read, and maybe that was one thing that contributed to her acceptance of people from all walks of life, of all backgrounds and all races, which was not a practice often seen in that time.  From the way I saw things, Grandmom didn't concern herself too much with what a person's income or job title was or with how fancy of a car or house a person had; as long as someone seemed to have a good heart, seemed to be trying to "do right," and seemed to be genuine and kindhearted, Grandmom liked that person, and, like my dad, she extended courtesy and respect to most everyone she met.

Although the level of anxiety and extreme depression that Grandmom had been experiencing seemed to leveled off for the most part over the course of the weeks after she had been told about my dad's illness and subsequent death, her overall health did not improve.  On the afternoon of April 18, 2011, my mom got a call from the nursing home and was told that Grandmom's condition had worsened.  Mom called my sisters and me to update us as she hurried to get to Grandmom's side, where she stayed for the remainder of the day.  With Grandmom's breathing labored and her skin color changed, Mom talked to the nurses and decided to spend the night with Grandmom so she would not be left alone even for a minute.  The staff at the nursing home was kind enough to move Grandmom's roommate to another room so Mom could sit at Grandmom's bedside in privacy.  Throughout the night, Mom read to Grandmom, talked to her, and tried to reassure her that it was ok for her to go on ahead, reminding her that she was so loved and that my dad and my grandfather were waiting for her in heaven.  Grandmom seemed to be at peace, and, as the first light of day could be seen through the big window in the room and with my mom holding her hand, Grandmom took her last breath.

My sister Nancy joined my mom soon afterwards at the nursing home, and together they dealt with the things that needed to done, including calling the funeral home, packing up Grandmom's belongings, and saying their goodbyes.  There were some haunting similarities to what had had to be done after my dad's death just three months earlier, but at the same time this was a different situation for many reasons.  Given all that had happened to impact her quality of life and given her age and overall health, we all knew that Grandmom was prepared to go on ahead and that she very likely welcomed her own passing from this life.  From my perspective, it seemed that she had been leaning into the light for quite some time, dearly missing her husband of 50 years and many others who had gone before her - and feeling that her purpose on this earth had been served.  Personally, I will say that the news of her death hit me hard but that my mourning was much more for my own sake than for hers, and the grief from her passing and from that from my dad's was so enmeshed it was like pouring gas on a fire.  

I found a group email that my dad had sent out just before he'd gotten sick to update people about Grandmom, and I used that set of contact information to communicate the news to many extended family members and friends about Grandmom's passing and to let them know that we had decided to hold a memorial service for Grandmom in her hometown over Memorial Day weekend to give those traveling from out of town time to make the necessary arrangements.  Mom had the obituary run in the newspaper in Grandmom's town and contacted Grandmom's church to let them know as well.  

A couple of weeks later, a violent storm came through the area where I live overnight.  The noise of the thunder actually woke me up in the night, interrupting a dream that I had been having about my grandfather's brother Hilyard, whom I had only seen a few times in my life.  The last couple of times I remember seeing him, he was using a walker to get around; it had been many years since his passing and many more since I had seen him.  In the dream, though, he walked up to me unaided, looking younger than I remembered ever having seen him but so closely resembling my grandfather that it was easy for me to recognize who he was.  He looked at me and said very simply, "Your grandmother and your dad want me to tell you that they are ok," and then, before I could respond, he turned on his heel and strolled away.

When I checked my email early that next morning, I saw that I had a message from my dad's second cousin Carl, Hilyard's grandson, who had heard on the news that the storm had left damage to many homes in my city.  I was touched that Carl was checking in on us; I had not corresponded with him in the past except for the recent message about Grandmom - but I was stunned at the timing of the communication, just about an hour after I had had the dream about his grandfather.  I emailed Carl back and told him that we hadn't sustained any damage in the storm, but, not knowing what he would think if I told him about the dream, I didn't mention it then - but I did a few weeks later at the memorial service for Grandmom.

To be continued ... 

Dog Tags

Sometimes when I think back to during the time when my dad was sick, I remember a detail that I had forgotten or overlooked in my memories before.  

Today I remembered his dog tags.

When I was growing up, whenever I asked my dad about his experience serving in Vietnam, he always talked about how his job there was to guard a building with weapons in it, often on an overnight shift.  

My dad was never a "night owl;" as far back as I can remember, he was much more of a morning person, and I guess that was true when he was in the service, too, because he often commented when he talked about that time about how hard it was for him to stay awake on his overnight shifts.  He said he usually ran around and around the building he was assigned to guard so that he would stay awake and alert during those shifts.  The only problem with this plan, he reported, was that he had to wear his dog tags at all times and, as they hung from the chain around his neck, they drove him crazy bouncing against his chest as he ran.  Ever the improviser, though, he thought of a solution to this problem too: he took the dog tags off from around his neck and put them in his pants - in his jock strap, to be exact. 

It's kind of funny to think that a person can be proud of someone else before that person was even born or before they knew each other, but I know it's possible, because, picturing my dad as a young soldier in a foreign land, before I was born, doing what he had to do to get his job done and to defend our country, I feel such a sense of pride and respect, the same pride and respect that I have had for him throughout my life. 

But those dog tags from Dad's days in Vietnam aren't the ones I think about most often these days.  The dog tags on my mind are the ones that Dad wore on a chain around his neck as a 66 year-old man as he trained for the Ironman triathlon.  He tucked those into his shirt as he rode his bike or ran, and, the day before he became disoriented on a run and our campaign against his brain cancer began, the chain that held those dog tags broke.  And so, on that fateful day, he set out for the first time in many months without any form of identification at all.  

I think when most people think about dog tags, they think about toughness.  That's what I think about, too, because it was that, along with his strength and resilience that day that allowed Dad to dig deep enough so that, even in his state of confusion coming from the tumor the size of a racquetball in his brain, he could remember not just his home phone number (which was called first by the police but went unanswered because my mom was out of town) but also my aunt's cell phone number, which he also recalled and then gave to the police who had been called to the scene because he somehow also remembered that my mom was out of town that day and realized he needed to call someone local.

I have spent time, some while Dad was sick and even more since he went on ahead, thinking about how things would have likely gone had he not had the fortitude to pull out that information in those few moments before he was taken to the hospital by ambulance, before he had a couple of seizures, and before he quit breathing and had to be put on life support temporarily until he could be stabilized.  It is nothing short of terrifying to think that all of that would have been going on and no one in our family would have been able to be notified so that we could all get there to be with him.  It's horrifying to think about the fact that he would have been a Missing Person for an undetermined amount of time, because, with my mom out of town overnight that night, it is highly likely that no one would have realized that he didn't make it home after his run that afternoon.  We would not have known that anything out of the ordinary was going on.  Again and again, it hits me that, even with as bad as it was when he first got sick and throughout his illness, it could have been worse.  At least we knew where he was, and what was going on with him, and at least we were able to be with him. 

Dad, wearing the dog tags, competing in what ended up being his last race, one month prior to his diagnosis of brain cancer

In the days just before and just after his surgery, Dad worried a lot about what he called "loose ends."  As it would be for any of us whose life was put on hold in the blink of an eye, it was unnerving and extremely anxiety-causing for Dad that he had not been able to prepare for the time he was having to miss work and everything else for which he considered himself to be responsible.  In the midst of the constant stream of worries he had about his health and about needing to take care of the responsibilities in his personal and professional roles in life, he said he wanted to get the chain that had held his dog tags fixed, "so that I'll have it ready as soon as I can get back on the road."

And so, sitting in the hospital room with him in the Neuro-ICU, I searched on the Internet and found a company that sold replacement chains and ordered one for him; he was visibly relieved when I told him that a new chain was being sent to him in the mail.  And that's where the meaning of those dog tags deepens in our story; instead of standing only for toughness, Dad's dog tags also represented Hopefulness, and we desperately needed everything we could get to bolster both of those qualities as we entered into a more grueling battle than any of us could even imagine at that point.

Before

There are certain things that went on during the time when my dad was sick that I don't remember, especially during the last couple of weeks of his life when we were all so stressed out, so worried, so confused, so sleep-deprived, and so terrified.  It's like my mind blocked out some of those things, or maybe all of my energy had to be poured into meeting Dad's needs instead of moving things over into my memory bank as he got sicker and sicker.

Sometimes something said in conversation about an event that occurred in those weeks alerts me to the fact that there is some weird amnesia-like spot that seems to have been blocked in my brain.  My kids and my husband and even my friends and coworkers have mentioned things they remember from during that time that I don't. Recently, my daughter was talking about wanting to go back to a restaurant near my parents' house; she said that we had been there while my dad was in the hospital.  I, however, have no remembrance of ever having gone there.  

Sometimes these days a memory from during that time comes back to me from out of nowhere, and other times there is something that triggers that recollection, causing me to flash back to something that happened that I didn't remember previously.  

That's what happened to me yesterday when I was driving in my car and I heard a song come on the radio that caused a memory to come flooding back:

On the Sunday after the memorial service we held in Dad's honor, my husband, my daughters, and I left my parents' house to drive back to our house.  When we stopped at an exit along the way and went into the gas station, there was a song called "If You Get There Before I Do" playing on the overhead speaker.  When I'd first heard it, well before Dad had gotten sick, I'd thought it was one of the saddest songs I'd ever heard, but that was nothing compared to how devastatingly sad I found it to be that day. When I recognized the song, I could hardly breathe.  I made my way outside into the freezing air as fast as I could so that I didn't hear the music anymore and just stood there with tears streaming down my face until my husband and my daughters came back outside.  Maybe they'd gotten used to the craziness that seemed to have become part of me in those days or maybe they didn't notice how upset I was; they didn't say anything about my hasty departure.  I think I mumbled something like, "I can't listen to that song; it's a really sad one," and then we piled back into the car and I put my sunglasses on to hide my tears as we continued down the highway.

The Church Pew

I'm taking an online grief class, and part of the focus of the class is to put together a collection of memories and pieces of information about the loved one who went on ahead.  We have been given a list of fill-in-the-blank style questions to help in the information gathering process; the list includes things like favorite color, favorite subject in school, first job, hobbies, and words of wisdom.  Some of it is easy for me to complete, some of it is hard to remember or to narrow down, and some of it I don't know.  

It's the latter that really upsets me; it makes me think about just how sad it is that many of my dad's stories died along with him.  Luckily, my mom and my siblings can fill in some of the information that I don't know, but, when they have exhausted their repertoire, that's all there is.  And that hurts in a way that I didn't know existed before.

When my dad was in the hospital waiting for the surgery that resulted in his being officially diagnosed with cancer, he was very talkative, around the clock.  Some of what he spoke about were things he was worried about, mainly my mom and his mom.  He chatted about what he hoped to be able to do when he got out of the hospital.  He asked about each of his grandchildren and said he could hardly wait to see them again.  In between these conversations, though, he said a few things that were out of the blue and some that were out of context and maybe even out of the realm of what we could understand.  One of those things he said was that he could see his dad, who had passed away years before, and a man whom he said was his "first preacher" from when he was a little boy and whom he said had a last name of Whitehead.  According to my dad, he could see both of these men sitting at the end of a church pew.  He didn't seem to know what they were doing or what else was going on in that scene, but it did seem to leave him a little unsettled.

Fast forward about 7 months later, after my dad and then his mom (my grandmother) both had gone on ahead, and my extended family on my dad's side had gathered for a memorial service for my grandmother in her hometown in Alabama, which is where my dad grew up.  I asked several of the people who had known my dad as a child, including his brother, if they remembered a preacher by the name of Whitehead, and they all said they did not recognize the name.  The story remains a mystery, and the fact that it probably always will bothers me, a lot.  I wish I could hold onto every bit of my dad that ever was, every memory and every fact, even those that I didn't know yet.  I guess there is a kind of grief for the loss of those things that comes along with the grief of the loss of a loved one, too, yet another thing that I wish I didn't have to know.

Speeding

Last week, I was issued the first speeding ticket I've gotten in almost 19 years.  Seeing the blue lights in my rearview mirror, I pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and rolled down my window.  As I sat there waiting for the officer to walk over, a vivid memory of my dad came flooding back to me; I would venture to guess it isn't too often that a person who is about to be ticketed for speeding has a smile on their face and a sparkle of tears of joy in their eyes as they hand over their license and registration as I did, but having the flash of the good memory made it worth the price of the ticket to me.

As I've mentioned, my dad hated to be late to anything. While I was growing up, that desire to be not just on-time but EARLY often translated into driving above the speed limit for him, especially considering there were four females that he had to get out the door and into the car before we even got on the road.  As a result, he got lots of speeding tickets over the years, especially on long distance trips, which we took as a family pretty often.  

It wasn't as if he didn't try not to get speeding tickets: I remember when those label makers first came out on the market and Dad was so excited to buy one.  He used that thing to make sticky labels not so much for organizing and identifying things as I'm pretty sure it was intended to be used but much more for creating reminder notes for himself, including several "Don't speed" messages that he put on the dashboard of the car.  

I also remember him putting sticky notes up in the car to keep an ongoing tally of how many "points" he had from speeding tickets; he was always worried that he would lose track and go over the limit, which would have resulted in a suspension of his driver's license. 

The other thing he did to try to keep from getting too many speeding tickets was to buy a radar detector, or, as we called it, a Fuzz Buster.  That worked pretty well for awhile, until the police caught on to what people were doing and started just pulsing their radar guns at cars to keep drivers from getting a warning; that presented a problem for Dad, especially when we had to drive through states with "no radar detector" laws.  Dad couldn't keep track of which states ticketed drivers for that and which didn't, and so he just used his anyway anywhere we went and then, whenever he got zapped by a pulsing radar gun, he quickly unplugged the Fuzz Buster and threw it to us kids in the back seat of the car so we could get in on the conspiracy and hide it for him, which we thought was great fun. 

Another thing I remember about Dad's speedy driving habit is how much he hated it when the Sammy Hagar song "I Can't Drive 55" came out, which I think was in the mid-80's when the national speed limit was changed to a maximum of 55 MPH, something that Dad thought was very un-American.  

In the times when he did get pulled over, he was always a good sport about it, typical of his "win some/lose some" mentality.  In fact, I guess he thought the officer that was pulling him over deserved a laugh because he often tried to joke with him or her by doing things like rolling down his window and then acting like he was placing an order at a fast-food drive thru window: "I'll have a hamburger, an order of fries, and a large Diet Coke," he'd say, sometimes getting a laugh from the cop and other times getting a really mean scowl, which we later had fun imitating amongst ourselves in the backseat after Dad had taken his ticket and sped off again.

Not Knowing: Grandmom's Story, Part 3

Continued from Not Knowing, Grandmom's Story Part 2

In reading the book "Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying," by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelly, I came across many things that spoke to me in regards to what my family and I had experienced during the end of Dad's illness.  I read the book with a goal of gaining some insight and perhaps even some perspective about my dad's death, and, in the process, I began to see that there might be another reason for the recent changes in my grandmother's emotional state besides the cognitive decline associated with her medical condition.

One section of the book is about things that may be needed in order for a person to die peacefully:

"Some people realize a need for reconciliation.  Some request the removal of a barrier standing in the way of a peaceful death. Still others need particular circumstances to die peacefully - perhaps choosing the time of their death or the people who will be there.

Realizing what they need, dying people often become concerned; some communicate a tremendous urgency.  Coherent requests usually bring action.  But requests that are vague or indirect may be missed or ignored, leading to frustration, anxiety, and sometimes agitation.  If the awareness of an important need comes late - when death seems to be imminent - the person may delay or prolong the process of dying in an attempt to settle an issue or effect a final reconciliatory meeting.

A person's anxiety, agitation, or prolonged dying can be upsetting for everyone ... Often, the response to agitation is to sedate the patient ... Sedatives may help relieve agitation, but medicines alone are not the answer."

Reading these passages caused me to see some things in a new light, not just about my dad's passing but about Grandmom in her terminal condition, including the fact that our decision not to tell her about Dad's illness or his death might not be the best choice.  According to the authors, "Sometimes a family decides to withhold info about the death of someone the dying person knows.  While this is typically done out of kindness and concern, the truth often brings peace instead of discomfort or upset to the dying person."

I shared that insight with my mom and my sisters, and we decided that Grandmom needed to be told about Dad.  None of us wanted to do it, but we believed it was in her best interest and we hoped the information would help to ease her mind.  As my sister Jennifer recounts, "We were so worried that she would get the idea that he abandoned her, that he didn't want to visit her again, or maybe even that he didn't love her anymore, and of course we wanted to do anything we could to prevent her from those thoughts, which of course were absolutely untrue."  We resolved to tell her the next time one of us could go with Mom to visit her. 

Shortly after that, on the Tuesday before Dad's burial was scheduled on Saturday, Jennifer arrived at our parents' house, and she and Mom went together to see Grandmom.  Here is Jennifer's recollection of what happened when they got to the nursing home:

We rounded the corner and saw that Grandmom was sitting up in her wheelchair, which was parked just outside her bedroom door.  We greeted her, and then I kneeled down right in front of her and held both of her fragile hands in mine.  I said something like this:

"Grandmom, I want to tell you something that might make you sad, but I feel like you need to know, and  I don't want you to worry.  Bill was sick and had cancer.  He went to the best doctors and the best hospitals, but, even as strong as he was, he was not able to fight off the cancer.  He passed away and is in heaven now with God and with Roy [our grandfather, Grandmom's late husband].  He is not in any pain.  You should not worry.  Vicki and Stephanie and Nancy and I were all with him while he was sick, and we took good care of him.  He always asked about you and tried so hard to come back to see you again, but he was too sick.  You were so important to him, and he loved you so much.  We promised him that we will take care of you no matter what. Then, when God decides it is your time, you will get to go to heaven and be with Bill and Roy again."

Somehow I did it without crying -- I just felt really focused on giving Grandmom some relief and definitely did not want to cause her any additional sadness or worry about why I was sad, and so I just talked clearly and slowly and looked right into her eyes and told her.  She wasn't really able to talk much, but she definitely seemed to be listening to me, and I truly think had a look of relief and understanding on her face after she heard the news.  She did not cry.  A little while later, when we left, I hugged her again and told her I loved her and that Dad loved her and that we did not want her to worry. 

In the days that followed and over the course of the next two months, the nurses reported that she was sleeping better and was much less anxious.  She required fewer medications and wasn't crying anymore.  We like to think it was because she understood that her son loved her until he took his last breath and that, given the information about what had happened to Dad, she was able to hold onto the belief that he had gone on ahead but was waiting for her in heaven. 

To Be Continued - Part 4 of Grandmom's Story, Coming Soon

Not Knowing, Part 1

One of the things that my dad worried about the most when he was sick and even before then was his mom, who had been living alone in a small town in southern Alabama until the age of 87, when she suffered a stroke.

Kind of like my dad, she lost her independence in the blink of an eye, never to regain it, even though we had hopes that she would, at least to some extent.  Kind of like my dad, she was in very good shape physically and mentally, until her illness struck.  But unlike my dad, in addition to her physical skills, her cognitive abilities also were severely affected as a result of the stroke, and she did not have anyone in her area to take the kind of care of her that was required after that or the resources to have it provided in her home.  And so, as her hospital stay after the stroke was coming to an end, a skilled nursing facility was strongly recommended by the medical staff, and my parents decided to move her to one that was close to their house, one state over from hers.  

The downside was that the move disoriented her more and that, since it wasn't feasible for her friends from her hometown to visit her several hours from her hometown, she ended up being pretty isolated there, at least from people who had been involved in her life as it was before she got sick.  The upside was that my parents were able to check in on her several times a week and to make sure she was getting good care, and the rest of us were able to see her too whenever we were in town.  After the initial landslide loss of function, her memory and her physical status continued to deteriorate, a little at a time.  Eventually she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and she wasn't even consistent in recognizing those of us she had known for all of our lives, but she always recognized her son, my dad.  

Grandmom's first Christmas in the nursing home

Dad and I discussed many times over the years how tough it was to see Grandmom be so changed, so dependent.  She had always been a bold woman who strived to do things for herself and to do her part in making the world a better place.  All her life, she had lived on a fixed income; she did not have fancy things or take fancy trips, but she was grateful and generous and happy all the same.  Before she got sick, at the beginning of every year, she wrote out a detailed budget for herself for the upcoming year and mailed it to my dad.  The few times I happened to see what she'd written, I was flabbergasted at how specific it was and at my grandmother's frugality, and I was amazed that despite the limits of her finances she still committed to tithing to her church year after year.  She was not what one would call a Southern belle; rather, she was much more of an activist and a liberal-thinker for her time who valued individual rights and freedom for all.  

QUITE THE DAREDEVIL IN YEARS PAST:  With her younger brother Freddie, in Daytona Beach, FL ...

... and riding the bull at Gilley's

When Grandmom first got to the nursing home, she needed supervision around the clock and help with some things, but there were some things about her personality that were still the same.  She had always been a competitive person, and we saw shades of that come out in things she did there too; once when we visited her she told us she was the fastest person on a walker in the whole place.  Another time she proudly informed us that she had won the Bingo game there the day before, and she showed us a ladybug broach that she'd won for proof.  She was always so grateful for visitors, even as she became unclear on exactly who we all were, and she especially lit up whenever she saw my dad.

About a month before Dad was diagnosed with cancer, he and my mom sat down with Grandmom's doctor to discuss her steadily declining condition.  She had become completely dependent on others for everything, including feeding herself, and had been having some trouble with swallowing that seemed to indicate that she had had one or more mini-strokes that were hastening her decline.  Because of the swallowing difficulties, she was at risk for pneumonia and she was also having bouts of depression and anxiety, even though she did not seem to be aware of where she was or what was going on around her most of the time.  The physician recommended that my dad, who held Grandmom's medical power of attorney, enroll his mother in hospice care, which meant that she would continue to be cared for in the nursing home but that she would also be monitored by medical staff from a hospice agency who were specifically trained in end-of-life comfort care.  Wanting the best possible care for his mom, Dad signed the papers with a heavy heart; he'd committed to providing for and to looking after his mom years ago and felt in his heart that this was the best choice for her, as did we.

Worrying about her, her prognosis, and her comfort continued to weigh heavily on my dad in the days ahead; in fact, the last text message I ever got from him, which was just before he was diagnosed, was about his concerns for her.  He said he felt that she was declining so quickly that he didn't think she would survive even one month longer.  He said that he was worried about how "the girls" (meaning my children and my nieces, all of whom had visited Grandmom in the nursing home recently but had not seen her in her present condition) were taking the news of her decline; the whole situation was both difficult and sad for everyone involved.  Dad continued to visit his mom whenever he could, as did my mom; thinking about her was a part of their normal routine. 

Dad last visited him mom in the nursing home the day before he was rushed to the hospital and the mass in his head was discovered.  Suddenly, his own health was unstable and his life was at risk, weirdly and shockingly in some ways even more so than his 90 year-old mother.

In his typical way, though, he continued to worry about his responsibilities (his mom being one of the things topping his list) throughout the course of his illness, despite the fact that he was very sick himself.  During his first hospitalization and his stay at the rehab hospital, my sisters and I stood in for Dad, with at least one of us checking in on Grandmom every few days.  It was something we were glad to do; it felt like helping to take care of her was also helping to take care of him.

The first time we went to see her was the day after Dad's surgery.  My sister Jennifer and I went, while Mom and Nancy stayed at the hospital with Dad.  We were still reeling from having just been given the devastating diagnosis less than 24 hours before, and walking into Grandmom's room in the nursing home with a smile on our faces as if nothing was wrong was tough, to say the least. I couldn't shake the anguish that came from thinking about how much had changed in the six days it had been since Dad had last been there to visit his mom, but I felt in my heart that the news that Dad was so sick that he was unable to visit her would be more than Grandmom could (or should have to) handle at that point.  Neither of us is much of an actress, but, for Grandmom's sake and for Dad's, thankfully Jennifer and I pulled it off, and I was glad we were able to spare her the pain and fear that had taken root in the hearts of the rest of us who did know the truth.

After we told Grandmom goodbye in her room, we went to the nursing station down the hall to talk to the nurse who was taking care of her that day.  My mom had been doing Grandmom's laundry, collecting her dirty clothes weekly and then washing them and returning the clothes to her; however, given what we were faced with dealing with at that point, we decided to tell the staff that we wanted to have the laundry done at the facility until further notice.  "I'm Nellie's granddaughter," I said, "and I need to let you know that my dad is very sick and so neither he nor my mom will be able to visit her for awhile.  In fact, I need to give you my contact information and ask that you call me in case of emergency or if Grandmom needs anything."

Behind the desk, the nurse and several nursing assistants all stopped what they were doing and looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.  One of the CNA's leaned in and said, "Are you talking about that really nice bald-headed man that visits Miss Nellie all the time?"

"Yes, that's my dad," I told her.

"He's not sick," she asserted. "He was just up here to see her a few days ago, and he was smiling and joking around like he always does. He's the picture of good health!"

I could tell by the looks on the faces of everyone who was listening that they thought I was mistaken.  I understood their thought process; it was the same one that was going through my head repeatedly, fueling my shock and disbelief as well.  I gave them a brief run-down on what had happened: "He got sick while he was out running last Saturday and was taken to the hospital, where they found out he had a mass in his head.  Yesterday, he had surgery, and we found out that he has brain cancer."  There.  I said it, out loud, for the first time.  I felt sick to my stomach, until the voice in my head told me that it wasn't true, it couldn't be true.  

But it was.  In what would become a pattern from that moment forward, as soon as I delivered the awful news about my dad, I was put into a position of having to try to comfort the recipients of the news.  The second after the words left my mouth, I felt guilty about having had to deliver such a blow.  I've since learned that there is a term for something like this called  'vicarious traumatization,' which happens when a trauma specialist spends day after day being exposed to another's trauma.  But it was necessary that they knew, and the news was out.  "We do not want my grandmother to be told about my dad; please make a note in the chart and be sure everyone knows."  I stood there watching them try to keep their composure, until the nurse whom I had originally addressed stepped from around the desk and hugged me.  When she backed up, she had tears in her eyes, and she said, "I'm so sorry.  Please tell him and your mom that we will take extra good care of Miss Nellie."  I swallowed my own tears, thanked her, handed her a piece of paper with my contact information and instructions about having the laundry done for Grandmom on it, and backed away, before I lost it.  

Thinking back, I wonder if what I thought was true actually was:  did I insist that Grandmom not be told because it was better for her, or for us?  Was it too much for her to handle having to hear the news, or for me to have to tell her?  Was it taking the easy way out in avoiding having to deal with her emotions?  Was it protecting her or us?  I think it was for her sake, and for Dad's, but like a lot of things that went on during that time, I can't be sure.  Whether or not it was right to decide not to tell her that day and in the weeks that followed is something that I have questioned many times since then.  Regardless, though, with Grandmom's care squared away, Jennifer and I left the nursing home and headed back to the hospital.

In a life-is-weirder-than-fiction moment, later that day we discovered that Robbie, one of the nurses that was on Grandmom's hospice service, also worked at the hospital where Dad was.  She heard about Dad from the nurses at the nursing home and came to see Dad in the ICU.  (Maybe she was verifying the accuracy of what I'd said for the rest of the staff at Grandmom's facility.)  It seemed to confuse Dad at first when he saw her there, which I actually thought was a good sign, because it was kind of puzzling to have someone involved in Grandmom's care show up on the scene at the hospital where Dad was.  Robbie asked some questions about what had happened and about what was going on with Dad, and then she told us that she would check in on Grandmom more often than usual and would report back to my parents.  We were grateful to have the help; it eased our minds, especially Dad's, to know that Grandmom would be getting some extra attention and interaction.  

It's funny how what seems tragic can change in a single moment.  As things were, after the news of hospice care having become necessary for Grandmom, my family was grieving.  It seemed terrible to have had to watch her decline as she became more physically challenged and more disoriented.  And now, in the blink of an eye, the tragedy had changed, or maybe it had just widened; our perspective and possibly even our forbearance had been altered by Dad's sudden illness.  I think we just thought that was the one-two punch that we just had to get through, that if we could rally and shore up, things would get better.  We had to think that way; it was the only thing keeping us from falling apart.

To Be Continued ... Not Knowing, Part 2

Feels So Good

Following is a guest post written by my sister, Jennifer:

While Dad was sick, we tried everything we could think of to make him smile, to help him relax, and just to take his mind off his worries.  During one of our middle of the night conversations (that I wouldn't trade for anything), we started talking to Dad about music, a subject about which none of his kids is particularly knowledgeable, but one that Dad had always been passionate about.  Dad played the trumpet very well as a young man and always loved listening to big band music, as well as Barbra Streisand and more recently Josh Groban.  That night, I asked Dad what his favorite song was and he said he didn't really have one -- he wasn't really that engaged in the conversation.  But I clearly remembered his having a favorite song when we were growing up and I wanted him to remember it, too, and so I started trying to hum the tune (it didn't have any lyrics, just instrumental, with a beautiful trumpet solo).  I have zero musical ability, however, and no one had any idea what song I was describing. 

A few days later, after I found the name of the song ("Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione), my husband Peter bought it on iTunes and emailed it to me so I could have it on my phone in Nashville.  I played it for Dad, and he smiled just briefly and said that he remembered it, but he really didn't have the strong recollection of how much he loved it that I had expected.  I kept insisting, "Dad, it's your FAVORITE!" and he just kept agreeing with me, I think not wanting to make me feel like I had gotten it wrong.  No one else remembered it as being one of Dad's favorites or particularly special to Dad at all.

Fast forward a few short weeks later, and Dad was home on hospice care.  On the night he died, my mom, sisters, and I were with him, sometimes all at once, sometimes in pairs, and at times one at a time.  During one of the moments when I was alone with Dad, I crawled into his bed with him, cramming myself between his body and the guard rail of the hospital bed, and I started humming the song into his ear.  Dad wasn't able to respond, but I felt sure he could hear it and that it might ease his mind in some way, still insisting to myself that Dad loved the song.  Then I remembered that Peter had emailed it to me, and I got my phone and played it quietly, holding the phone right next to his ear.  I'll never know if it made Dad feel any better, but it made me feel more connected to him (whether he remembered the song as having been a favorite of his or not!), even when he couldn't reply.

A few months later, on a random spring day in L.A., I reluctantly went on a Home Depot errand with Peter.  Peter loves Home Depot, and I really can't stand Home Depot, so as Peter was walking up and down the aisles looking for certain items he needed, I trudged along behind, working on my own to-do list in my head and not really paying attention.  The store was crowded, and the only sounds I could hear were parts of the background noise of busy shoppers and the occasional store announcement.  All of the sudden, as I came to a display of a truck bed with a fancy waterproof stereo system that was for sale, a song started playing, loud and clear.  At the exact second that I reached this display, Dad's "favorite" song started playing: Feels So Good.  From an aisle or two away, Peter heard the song, too, and knew of its significance to me, and he rushed over to find me with tears pouring down my face but with a big smile.

Dad always worried about us kids, and he always wanted to know that we were settled -- especially in our jobs and our homes.  Since we'd moved to the L.A. area about two years before, Peter and I had been renters, and that bothered Dad.  He wanted stability for us and for our children, and he knew I was anxious to buy a house that I could make into a home.  Even during his illness, Dad continued to ask me about whether there were any houses for sale that I liked and whether we planned to make an offer on any of them (then rolling his eyes and telling me they were all too expensive, in his practical, conservative way.)  It wasn't until March of 2011, two months after Dad's death, that we found the right house, and that was the reason we were at Home Depot that day -- to buy things for our new house.  It felt like Dad knew, and he was happy, and he wanted me to know that.

New Orleans On The Mind

My dad loved New Orleans.  He thoroughly enjoyed the food, appreciated the people, delighted in the music, and, of course, he LOVED the Street Beer!

 

Dad, making a presentation to some of his clients at a meeting

When people asked Dad what he did for a living, he said that he was “in the grain business."  During his career, he managed several grain elevators, supervised the opening of a rice processing plant, and, in 1993, joined an agricultural marketing consulting firm as a principal commodities broker.

Not long after he graduated from college and got his first job in the field, he joined the Mid-South Grain Association, a trade organization for people in the ag-marketing business.

During the course of his career in the grain business, the Mid-South Grain Association was a constant for Dad.  He served as president of the organization for several years and was secretary-treasurer for the past 18 years. He was always so appreciative of the numerous friendships he developed through the group and enjoyed organizing their semi-annual conventions, one of which was always held in February in New Orleans.

My sisters and I and our spouses tagged along several times when my parents went to the convention in New Orleans, always a fun time for all of us and a good opportunity for us to see Dad “in action” with so many people he had known professionally and personally for years and in some cases for decades.

When Dad got sick in late October, he had just begun planning for the convention the following February.  He still had to line up guest speakers, get people registered, and coordinate with the hotel where the meetings were always held, the Royal Sonesta.  He had quite a long To-do list going, and this became one of the things about which he worried while he was sick.

After Dad was admitted to the hospital, while he was in the Neuro-ICU for several days awaiting surgery, he was on several different medicines, including a massive amount of steroids to address the swelling around the tumor in his brain and a type of pain medication that we later learned resulted more in increased anxiety and talkativeness than it did in pain relief for Dad.

My mom, my sisters, and I took shifts, often in pairs, to be with him 24 hours a day, and, as I’ve mentioned, we took careful notes about everything that went on.  One of the things we wrote down was what he said, especially when it related to things about which he was concerned. 

During those long, scary nights in the ICU, he talked endlessly, often about not feeling well, having a bad headache, and being very tired, all of which made sense given what we knew about what was going on with him medically.

Just a few hours before his surgery, he seemed to finally be getting some rest, but he kept talking in his sleep, saying things like “I’m bored,” “I’ve got to know when I can run again,” and “I don’t know why I have to be here.”  He also said some things that weren’t in context, like “I’m going to the oyster bar,” and “I’m going to eat a dozen.”  In between comments, he kept repeating a number that didn’t make sense to us, and, after hearing him say that same number over and over, I decided to use my cell phone to Google it.  It turned out that the number was the telephone number to the Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans.  Apparently, he had New Orleans on The Mind.

Over the course of the next several weeks, we made lots of notes of things that Dad told us to write to complete the Convention-Planning To-Do List, and then we passed it on to someone else in a leadership position with the organization.  Dad still worried about it frequently, but we tried to reassure him each time he brought it up that it was being taken care of. 

After Dad went on ahead on January 5, Mom was asked to continue taking part in the convention and with the organization, if she felt up to it.  She had worked side-by-side with Dad for all those years in planning for and putting on the convention, and she definitely knew the ropes.  Because Dad was so concerned that the convention go smoothly, Mom felt that carrying on with that task was a good way to honor his wishes and to uphold his legacy in the professional realm.  She did get the job done, coordinating the planning for the event, and, with my husband and me, attending the convention to represent Dad as he would have expected us to do. 

I’m sure that Dad was watching over us during our time in New Orleans and that, although he might have missed being there, he was proud that we honored his commitment and that the show went on.