Father's Day
Today I want to talk about something that is painful, but perhaps necessary to talk about. I was reminded by my friend's blog (see Ted's Thots) about my dad. Dad passed away on June 2, 2005 after struggling with Alzheimer's for several years. Alzheimers is a terrible disease. It causes you to lose your loved one twice. Once as they slip away from you slowly over the years by loss of memory and personality and again when they die.
Dad was kind, very intelligent, opinionated (REALLY opinionated!), but loving. His grandkids loved to make him laugh just to watch his bald head turn red! It was funny! He and I disagreed on some things - and having inherited his stubbornness that meant we did our fair share of arguing. And being a bit emotional we argued loudly. But, we understood one another I think and respected each other enough that at the end, we still could laugh and talk together. Mom never understood this I think.
I was contemplating Micah 4:9-5:4 (today's message) and how this whole passage is about a variety of painful experiences that Israel will go through. But it is also about the hope that exists at the end of each of these experiences - but to get to the hopeful part, we have to go through the painful part. That bites.
As I contemplated this, I thought about the fact that so often we try to avoid pain by medicating ourselves. I'm struggling with gout and believe me I wish there was some powerful pain medication I could take to take away the pain! But, there isn't - or at least my doctor won't prescribe it for me. With Dad - watching him go through the hell of Alzheimers - there wasn't much to do for him regarding medication. And for us kids I think we tended to minimize it for a while and finally we had to all face the facts and accept that we were losing Dad. We never talked about it though...it was a bit of a taboo subject. Silence was our medication.
It was taboo that is until we had to put him into the nursing home. Mom had done her best to care for him and did a wonderful job caring for the man she had loved for 54 years. But it finally got to be too much for her. (I never knew how strong my mom was until this all happened.)
Well, to get back on track, it's Father's Day and I wanted to say this - we see that when someone dies of cancer, often in their obituary it says something like this, "after a courageous battle with cancer they passed away..." And that is true - battling cancer takes courage. Alzheimers seems different - we don't say someone battled courageously with Alzheimers because it doesn't appear to be a battle. They simply slide away. And yet...I know Dad battled with it in the only way he could - by asking hard questions of people he had known his entire life like, "Now what is your name again?" I know that bothered him. I know at one of his cousins funerals he was so depressed he did something I had never seen him do before - he went outside and cried. Eventually, of course, this too passed and after the anger stage he became this person who smiled all the time and had no opinions. That was the first time we lost him. For Dad, there was no medicating the loss of memory, there was only the knowledge dimly held that things were drifting away and there was nothing he could do about it.
He is through with all of that now and is at rest. I miss arguing with him. I miss his smile. I miss his red bald head!
Happy Father's Day, Dad.
Dad was kind, very intelligent, opinionated (REALLY opinionated!), but loving. His grandkids loved to make him laugh just to watch his bald head turn red! It was funny! He and I disagreed on some things - and having inherited his stubbornness that meant we did our fair share of arguing. And being a bit emotional we argued loudly. But, we understood one another I think and respected each other enough that at the end, we still could laugh and talk together. Mom never understood this I think.
I was contemplating Micah 4:9-5:4 (today's message) and how this whole passage is about a variety of painful experiences that Israel will go through. But it is also about the hope that exists at the end of each of these experiences - but to get to the hopeful part, we have to go through the painful part. That bites.
As I contemplated this, I thought about the fact that so often we try to avoid pain by medicating ourselves. I'm struggling with gout and believe me I wish there was some powerful pain medication I could take to take away the pain! But, there isn't - or at least my doctor won't prescribe it for me. With Dad - watching him go through the hell of Alzheimers - there wasn't much to do for him regarding medication. And for us kids I think we tended to minimize it for a while and finally we had to all face the facts and accept that we were losing Dad. We never talked about it though...it was a bit of a taboo subject. Silence was our medication.
It was taboo that is until we had to put him into the nursing home. Mom had done her best to care for him and did a wonderful job caring for the man she had loved for 54 years. But it finally got to be too much for her. (I never knew how strong my mom was until this all happened.)
Well, to get back on track, it's Father's Day and I wanted to say this - we see that when someone dies of cancer, often in their obituary it says something like this, "after a courageous battle with cancer they passed away..." And that is true - battling cancer takes courage. Alzheimers seems different - we don't say someone battled courageously with Alzheimers because it doesn't appear to be a battle. They simply slide away. And yet...I know Dad battled with it in the only way he could - by asking hard questions of people he had known his entire life like, "Now what is your name again?" I know that bothered him. I know at one of his cousins funerals he was so depressed he did something I had never seen him do before - he went outside and cried. Eventually, of course, this too passed and after the anger stage he became this person who smiled all the time and had no opinions. That was the first time we lost him. For Dad, there was no medicating the loss of memory, there was only the knowledge dimly held that things were drifting away and there was nothing he could do about it.
He is through with all of that now and is at rest. I miss arguing with him. I miss his smile. I miss his red bald head!
Happy Father's Day, Dad.
posted by Greg at 7:28 AM
3 Comments:
Thanks Phyl!
You really are a great writer. Well done!
Really great post, although quite sad. I was very touched - my dad read it out loud to us this morning. You are a great writer. I can't wait to hear more! It makes me want to get back to writing in my blog, actually...thanks!
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