Time, Date, Temp

5:58 pm, Friday, June 12, 2020. 74.3 degrees inside. 80 something outside. I sit in bed and stare at “The Classic Cars of the Fifties” mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed. Each one on its shelf that's shared by two others. All twelve portray a different world, a different time. My favorite is the third to the right on the third shelf down. Don’t know what it is, but it is smaller with a white top that looks like it may be a convertible and the body is a pretty sky-blue color. I would get up to see what make and model it is, but I don’t feel like it. Hmm – guess I am depressed. OK, so I’ll keep writing. To the right of the “Classic Cars of the Fifties” are the “Classic Cars of the 60’s”. Funny, “Fifties” is spelled out, and “’60s” is written in number form. Here again, each car sits on its shelf next to two others. These are all lower to the ground and not as ornate.

To the right of these cars is what I spend a lot of my time looking at when I’m in “my” room; a large digital clock hanging on the wall. It’s about 10×14 inches and has large numbers making it easy for someone with low vision to see. The numbers are black on a gray background and it has a silver frame. I really like it. The seconds count by and it shows the month, date, and day under the time along with the temperature. It is still 74.3 degrees, even though the air conditioning came on a few minutes ago. Sitting on top of the clock is a small, heavy, pewter pair of cowboy boots. Mom said “Your Dad had them for a long time. He always took them with him.”

Oh, I almost forgot how much I liked the barometer on the wall to the right. It was made at Taylor Instruments. Dad worked there probably about fifty years ago. It’s crazy, that at my age (54), I never thought about barometric pressure until I was sleeping in this room and happened to notice the movement of the hand to 29.8 during a thunderstorm one evening! Right now the hand is resting over 30.3. Yep, it’s been clear, sunny, and hot today. I think the part above it that is supposed to measure moisture in the air is broken because that hand hasn’t moved in the whole three months I’ve been here. The mercury thermometer at the bottom is too small to read from the bed, but that’s OK because I have the large clock which tells me that it is now 74.8 degrees in here. OMG! I just went to close this book and found two ribbon page markers. I didn’t know this book had ribbon page markers and I’ve had it for a couple of years! They were folded up so they didn’t stick out at the bottom. Now they are going to mark this page.

It’s now 6:51 pm and 74.7 degrees inside. Ellen called. She is going to Pine Ridge tomorrow. John will go fishing while she is there with Bryson. He’s going to take Aggie and let her run loose on one of the little islands on the lake. Brent called. He talked to the Realtor about being agreeable to six months of owner financing on the block house in Spindale. He also mentioned that we want to sell the double-wide and the life estate beside the blockhouse. We should be able to have it cleaned up in the next month. It’s good to have so much to keep my mind busy. I just took my Lexapro and took a sip of my Butter Pecan Glucerna. That’s right, Glucerna. Never thought I would like that, but it seemed to make Mom happy when I tried it and I actually loved it! Been drinking them now for three months.

The sun isn’t shining on my crystal hanging in the window enough to make rainbows any longer today. I’ve written my first entry in my “One Minute Gratitude Journal”. Now I’m going to read “The 12th Planet” by Zachariah Sitchin. It’s the first book in “The Earth Chronicle” series. Mom ordered a set for me and Ellen to complement “The Kolbrin Bible” which we are meeting weekly to study together. Mom and I sit on her bed and call Ellen every Monday after I’ve come home from work. Home is here with Mom and Steve (my brother) Monday through Friday while working, Pine Ridge on Saturday and Sunday, and Spindale only once overnight since January. Anyway, Ellen hasn’t been here since March when Dad died and the pandemic broke out. Enough writing for one night. The evening rays of the sun decided to share a few more slivers of red, green, yellow, and blue on the walls. Smile. Six o’clock comes early. It’s now 75.0 degrees inside.

6:29 pm, Saturday, June 13, 2020. 73.2 degrees inside. 80 something outside. Barometric pressure 30.3. Jeez, I ate too much! On the way home from work, I stopped at Ingles, wearing my mask of course, and bought some BBQ chicken, macaroni salad, and Mexican cornbread (Steve’s favorite). Mom had made homemade muffins, pumpkin with chocolate chips, and apples which were still warm. So, after getting my shower and putting my clothes in the washer, I ate all of the above with a Coke! I need to start exercising so I’ll have the energy to do everything I need to and feel happier. Give me strength, drive, and self-discipline, please! I got more new books delivered to Pine Ridge today. I have a sore throat and a headache, so going to cut this short tonight. I want to read for a while. It’s now 73.0 degrees inside, 6:37, 44 seconds, and counting. 5:00 am comes early. I forgot to get up at five this morning and was late to work.

I just noticed there are still dried blood splatters on the wall beside where Dad used to sit. Mom said she could hear him coughing a lot during the night. . . . I’ll clean that tomorrow. 6:40 pm – decided to keep writing. I’m still pretty strong. Miss Caroline fell in the dining room at work today and I picked her up by myself (no one else was with us). Of course, she only weighs 112 lbs. Caroline is in her nineties and still going like the Energizer Bunny with the help of her Merry Walker, but her mind is also going. “Let’s go”, “Let’s go,” she says while hurrying up and down the halls, into rooms, behind the nurse's station, trying to open doors. “Let’s go”. “We don’t need slow people. We need fast people.” She’s always asking “What can I do?” “I don’t know what to do.”

All of the residents have only been able to visit with family and friends through a closed window since the pandemic broke out. Only “essential” personnel are allowed into the facility. Nancy, who can’t feed herself, misses her husband, who used to bring her Bojangles every day. Mary is not eating well and is depressed.

Miss Margaret died two nights ago of natural causes. She was found dead lying in her bed. What a blessing. She hadn’t been out of that bed for a while, and every time I changed the dressing on the pressure ulcer on her heels, the curses would fly – “God damn you!” “God dammit.” “I wish I’d never been born!” She looked as if she had spent every Sunday of her life in a church pew. She wore the prettiest hats before she became bedridden. Colored ribbons, flowers, and other embellishments adorned them atop her small gray head and made those around her smile. I’m grateful for her passing. She’s no longer merely existing. Can I get an “Amen”! OK, 5 o’clock comes early and it’s now 7:01 pm, 74.1 degrees inside.

8:12 pm, Monday, June 15, 2020. 75.6 degrees inside. Barometric pressure 30.4. Worked 10 hours today. Shouldn’t have drunk a coke when I got home. Having heart palpitations. Am writing this while lying in bed…. Kind of difficult. Mom went through another box of stuff today and left me a manila folder with Granny’s old recipes inside of an old recipe book from 1946 which said “5,000,000 copies in use” on the front of it. It’s hard to imagine 5,000,000 people having that particular cookbook in 1946. Amongst the recipes was a small envelope measuring about 3 x 4 inches that said “War and Navy Departments V-mail Service” and dated January 25, 1945 – 4 pm. Inside was a round patch with a blue X over a white V on a gray background and a handwritten note.

“Dearest One, I guess by now you know that I have been wounded in action. I just want to say don’t worry about me dear because I didn’t get it too bad. I hope you can read this because I am laying on my back and can’t use my left arm. I guess I will be out of action for two or three months. Keep writing to 975 until I tell you different. Write often darling. All my Love, Herbert”

Also hiding in the stack of recipes was an old black and white photograph of a toddler wearing overalls and a plaid shirt riding a tricycle on the porch of an old house. His face is too bright and faded. Dad? Two shadows cast on the porch in front of him, one of which is snapping the photograph. Another second frozen in time, and just like that, it’s over and he’s gone. This written word is also a second frozen in time and all of these seconds connect to form the story I just wrote. Breathe in, breathe out. 8:48 pm, 75.9 degrees. I heard thunder.

At the nursing home, Ed is dying. I told him that his son and daughter were both driving from out of state tonight to see him. “I know you don’t feel well Ed, but hang in there. Your family is coming to see you.” Even though we’re in the pandemic, we can let family stay at the bedside if someone is dying. I left a note for the nurses concerning Ed’s defibrillator. “Tape the magnet over it when he is near death. It may make a strange noise. Also, don’t remove it until fifteen or so minutes after death. The Hospice nurse had a patient die with a defibrillator once and she took the magnet off too soon. That patient was shocked and sat straight up in bed after everyone was sure they were dead”. “Please let the family know that the magnet will not stop the heart from beating. It stops the defibrillator from shocking the heart after it has stopped beating.”

Dialysis filters your blood through a machine and puts it back into your body and it usually takes 3-5 hours three times a week. “You could try it, Dad”. “No, it’s not an option. I’m not putting your mother and everybody else through that.”

Ed will be the third. It is true that they come in threes. Eula Mae died yesterday. Ed has spent the last month with us and has been very polite. He spent a large majority of his time “polishing the banister” so to speak. He is the first ninety-something-year-old I have seen with a penile implant. Dementia is a cruel road that brings folks to us unable to share or express who they are, who they were, or what they achieved in their lives. All that remains is a broken body and a mind dissolving into nothingness.

Eula Mae, ninety-one, suffered from severe dementia. Unable to drink unaided, she was thirsty a lot of the time. It’s not that she couldn’t hold the cup or swallow, but she ate the cup; Styrofoam, paper, plastic, even the plastic straws. She managed to chew up the lid of a plastic “sippy” cup and of course, glass was out of the question. The week before she succumbed was the worse. Twice she painted her face with her own feces and it had to be cleaned out of her dentures. Her Foley catheter had to be removed when she told the nurse who found her chewing it “I want to drink piss”.

I sincerely apologize for this depressing narration. Truly I do. Life is not all roses and sunshine. At times, there are also thorns and dark clouds. 9:36 pm, 75.7 degrees. “What can I do?” “I don’t know what to do.” You can minister with compassion.

Yesterday morning when taking a report from Amber, she said “I need to tell you how much I appreciate you. I couldn’t believe it when you told Carrie to tell me not to worry, that you would work my shift. I bragged to everybody. You came in at 4 am, drove me to the hospital, and then worked my shift. I’m tearing up talking about it. I can’t remember the last time that someone in management cared about us.” Having stressed and having a pity party for myself earlier in the week, those words meant so much to me. My heart was lightened a little. Thank you for the thank you, Amber. 9:48 pm, 75.7 degrees. Trying to make you proud Dad. Pleasant dreams.

8:28 pm, Wednesday, June 17, 2020. 73.6 degrees. Barometric pressure is 30.2. My brain is too drained to write tonight. Love, peace, and comfort tonight. 8:40 pm. “I don’t want to be here.” “I want to go home.” “I want Allan.” I have no words to comfort her. There is no time in “heaven” but here, Mom feels the pain of losing Dad every second of every minute of every day.

8:51 pm, Friday, June 19, 2020. 74.5 degrees. Barometric pressure 30.25. We drove to Marshall today. Jack wasn’t there to greet us. Brent said he didn’t come to the door to be let in last night either. I had dreamed of a giant whirlpool in the lake last night and Sadie was there playing with another dog who I couldn’t make out. Sadie died earlier this year, at only 2 yrs old from lung cancer, the youngest of our dogs to ever leave us. Jack has been sick for a while now. Perhaps the whirlpool in my dream is telling me that he is “circling the drain”, which is another way of saying someone is dying. Did Jack go off to die like old dogs sometimes do? If so, please go fast my friend. It’s so much better than the alternative.

Don’t know the time from where I’m sitting now. Monday, June 12, 2023. Don’t know the temperature from where I’m sitting now either. Remembering March 7, 2020.

Dad chose quality of life over quantity of life when he refused dialysis. No fear. I’m grateful that Mom had the strength and courage to take care of him as long as she did. I’m grateful that I, that we, were able to be there in his final days to “send him off” with love, understanding, and no pain, in the comfort of his own home. Sitting in his easy chair watching his favorite TV shows with all of us by his side day and night.

In the last moments, Mom stayed beside him while the rest of us went outside to smoke. My brother was telling us about the time he and Dad had taken the car to one of those drive-through car washes and learned that the back window leaked. The water was pouring into the back of the car like a waterfall. My brother asked “What do we do?” to which Dad replied, “There’s nothing we can do” he said, laughing, “we just have to keep going.” Inside, I know that he heard us laughing and laughed with us. Holding Mom’s hand, he took his final breath.

I will forever be my father’s daughter. I couldn’t begin to share all the ways he inspired me throughout my life. He taught me not to worry about what other people think. None of us are a finished product. We are all a work in progress. We are all beautiful, messy, and imperfect. Life is beautiful, messy, and imperfect. The trick is to love in spite of it all and live your life.

I truly believe that he was telling that story with my brother to leave us with one final word of advice before leaving. He’s already started on his next grand adventure. Until we see each other again Dad -- I’m sure you know that I, that we listened, and we will keep going.