I knew it would be a struggle when I came home in 2013. My dad and I did not have the best relationship. We were too much alike. When I was younger, my mom would always comment how I acted just like him when I pitched a temper tantrum. I have tried so hard to not grow up like him when it came to his habits and mannerisms. Let us just say that I still have some work to do on that front. So coming home was difficult when I had to deal with him. He tried to control my life from Day 1. He treated me like I was 12 again and that I needed adult supervision at the age of 48.
I also knew it would be even more difficult when he was diagnosed with possible dementia. I never could find a doctor to sign off on that diagnosis but all the signs were there, both medically and from a personality standpoint. My mother and grandmother had been qualified caregivers in life and they still needed additional help in caring for my great-grandmother who fought that illness. My dad could never care for himself. He didn't know how. His whole life, he had someone to provide for him. First was his mother, then the Air Force, and finally my mother, who went out of her way to make sure he was taken care of before she went to work at night. So when she died, he struggled with caring for himself. Honestly, I had hoped that life would find a way to work itself out.
He did the damage himself with years of heavy drinking and smoking and no self-control. It was a crutch that he leaned on his whole life. Mom claimed that he and I were the best of friends until I was the age of 5. I know exactly what happened at that point in my life. The family moved to Belle Glade, FL and his addictions no longer made him my father. He became an abusive alcoholic, verbally and physically, to everyone in the family. He would come home at night and have to "babysit" my brother and I because my mom worked nights at the local Emergency Room. His idea of quality time was going with him on his chip routes. His idea of spending time with me was taking me out into the yard to play catch, only for it to end up with me in tears because I could not throw the ball back to him the way he wanted. Yardwork was another version of Hell on Earth with him getting angry and yelling at me because I wasn't doing it the way he wanted it done. Holidays with him were particularly eventful, with him getting drunk and finding something or someone to get pissed about and then spending the rest of the day brooding somewhere in the house or out in the backyard.
As I got older, it was easier to distance myself. He would be working out on the road. He would come home on weekends, get drunk, throw his little hissy fit, then get back on the road Monday. He challenged me once when I was 16. I took him down in the living room and would not let him up until my mom quit laughing and told me to let him up. At that point, my dad never challenged me again. From then on, the only things we had in common were Atlanta Braves baseball and Alabama Football. When he came to my house, he was not allowed to smoke indoors and drinking was a no-no. Well I let my guard down at Christmas time one year and my 9-year old stepdaughter was told she was not good enough for Santa and then got upset when we took the booze away from him. I still regret that decision because it cost me more than anything.
When I came home in 2013, I found that the drinking and smoking were still excessive. He would drink till he passed out in his recliner, with the TV so loud that people 3 towns away could hear what he was watching. He had a girlfriend at the time but she was doing nothing for him except to help him spend his money.
So the challenge of caring for him was a hard one to assume. He was not the easiest person to care for. After his back surgery in 2018, I believe this is the point that he no longer cared. He became depressed and the dementia became more apparent. When he was in rehab after surgery, he claimed to see my late mother sitting on the bed next to him. When he was finally able to come home, he would torture us with wanting to find Mom and her parents believing that they were still alive. He would not do what the therapists asked as far as rehab would go. He would always find ways to stir up trouble with the caregivers that came in to care for him. While there were a couple of bad apples, for the most part, they did the best to care for him. He would lie to his doctors and nurses, on how he wanted to live to be close to his family but we that was a lie. He never wanted to take responsibility for his actions.
His death was quick and quiet. He was alive when the caregiver left the house that afternoon. When I arrived an hour later, he was leaning over to the side of the bed. He was unresponsive and appeared to be gasping for breath. I put his CPAP mask on and called 911. The operator walked me through CPR until EMS got there and declared him asystole. There it was. He was no longer in pain. Hopefully, he was in Heaven, chasing my mom around Eternity. I was released from my duty as caregiver. Free to go back and put the pieces of my life back together. There is no mourning because I had done it all the the 3 previous years. I did my best to honor his wishes to keep him out of a nursing home. My mother would have been proud of the care that I gave to him and provided to him. The only thing that feels different is that I now feel like there is a gap in my life because he consumed so much of my life caring for him. I am sure that will get easier as time goes forward.
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