All that Jazz

Every move you make to forge your own path is blocked. What is the role of a parent. To help your children to rise above. Both of my parents had secrets which they did not share with their friends. As a family I thought it was my duty not to share those secrets. The lies they were living. I was shocked when I moved to North Carolina to find people I didn't know, knew all about my dirty laundry. When I made friends, I kept them miles from my family. The few times I brought friends to their house, I learned that my job would not be mentioned, but the roaches in my apartment would be. The new dress I had bought with my earned money, would be qualified with a mention of the sneakers they bought me. I learned that I had to create a network of friends away from my family. Which is really the way it should be anyway. Children are supposed to have a support system separate from their family.

My mother remarried when I was in middle school. He never really felt like a father until I was an adult and he got dementia. All of a sudden he became nice. All of a sudden he joked and laughed. He enjoyed every small thing you did for him. When my mother was in the hospital I took care of him. It was fun and I did not make him feel that his opinion was worthless. I did not decide everything for him or order him around,.

Once he got caught wandering by the police, he lost his freedom. He was put into a home. No more days playing the trombone, or researching on the computer. All of a sudden he was not in an equal power position with his wife. She was running his life. When she went to visit, she was the center of attention visiting with all the other patients. She was supposed to be visiting him, not them. She was supposed to be helping him have some control, instead of taking it all from him. I didn't visit him much. I couldn't stand to be there. How could someone do this to someone they supposedly love. He desperately needed a advocate and his wife was not that. The last time I went to visit him with her, he acted like he hated her.

When my mother got less capable. I took over the visiting. I did not joke with the staff. I got on thier case. It was noon and he was still in his bed clothes. The bed sheets needed to be changed. When he did make it to the lunch room he was sitting by himself. I tried to visit him more often and started to look for a place for him to move. There seemed to be no group interaction in his current facility. I still cry thinking about it , and I wasn't even claiming to be in love with him.

The day he was taken to the hospital, Barbara and I had visited. We had told them something was wrong. They ignored us. They said they had been watching him and he was fine. Later that night they called the ambulance for him. I don't know if God was doing him a favor allowing him to die. He had lost total control of his life. I know with his illness some loss of control was inevitable. But he should have been able to feel proud and happy.

Now that he was dying , his children could make time to come down from New England. When he was living those visits were maybe once a year. He did not die right away. The only good thing was, with his room filled with family,he probably died happy.

I learned from him that once you could no longer guard your own back,nobody would do it for you. A death was valued as more than a week of sharing your lifes.