Tuesday 6 December 2016

On grief

Ten weeks ago, my father had a fall. It was the day before my youngest child's birthday, and we'd gathered at my parents' house as we do almost twice a week, every week.

I didn't know that that day might be the last normal conversation I have with him. This wasn't the first time he fell. He often has little slips which we dismiss because he's clumsy or doesn't look where he's going. This, combined with his refusal to see a doctor, made me feel irritated and annoyed, especially since my focus was on the baby of the family hitting such a major landmark.

That was a Thursday. By Monday, the pain was too much to bear.. My mother finally convinced him to go to an ER. She called me to moan about how long they'd been waiting. I offered to come up and she said not to worry, they'd be home soon. Then I thought of how bored she must be, so I drove up to the hospital anyway.

That was the beginning of our descent. When the doctor told us he'd cracked his vertebrae, I was still more irritated and angry with him for not taking the fall more seriously and seeing a doctor sooner. At the same time, I was relieved that he'd finally agreed to get some treatment - he'd have an op, and two weeks later he'd be home.

Except that he's not. And now he's no longer even himself. As my sister says, we handed a full person over to the hospital, and in his place we have half a person. A quarter. And we're supposed to be happy and excited when they point out his progress and pretend that it's completely amazing that he was able to take a step yesterday - when 10 weeks ago, he wasn't just taking steps, he was sitting with and laughing and giving his opinion about the upcoming US election and delighting in his grandchildren.

Not that it's the hospital's fault. It's no one's fault. Just that he didn't just have a cracked spine. He also had two brain bleeds, and perhaps it those that make him think that I am my mother or that I'm keeping him waiting for the boat he needs to catch or the military aircraft he has to jump out of. I hope it's not. I hope it's just ICU syndrome, because if I never have another talk about politics, the Holocaust, opera or the latest funny thing my daughter said with a man who can cite the name of every American president, who an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music and who can argue Israel's side like nobody's business, I feel like my own heart will stop. I feel like I will want it to.

My father has always said that he would never want to be tied to tubes and machines. So when I see him strapped to a bed because he constantly tries to pull the feeding tube out of his stomach, I feel sick. When I see the tube running from the tracheostomy he had when he fell into a coma, I feel sick. I know these things were necessary and we're lucky to have him and if it weren't for them, we wouldn't. But he'd hate it. He does hate it.

He's missed his birthday. My sister's fortieth. His summer garden - one of the things that make him happiest. Today as I drove my eldest daughter to her first school concert, she asked why her grandpa wasn't coming. I cried the whole way through. He's missed seeing anything except the glass walls of an isolation room in ICU while the summer beats on. These things have been dulled for us. We see people laughing and we resent them. As the three of us walk out of the hospital, we glare at the people who have received good news. Why should they have happiness? Why should they be allowed to walk in the world?

Every time we think he has turned a corner, he regresses. On Friday he was supposed to be admitted into a rehab, one step closer to coming home. Instead he contracted a superbug and now has no idea what's going on. My mom can't figure out Gd's plan for him. What ball and chain keeps snapping him back to that hospital bed?

I carry grief with me every minute. I feel like the Princess and the Pea - I do interviews, I write, I go for dinners, I chat to the moms at school, and all the time there's that little kernel of sadness trapped in the wall of my heart, like a stone in a shoe. Sometimes I choose not to go to the hospital for a day and I put him out of my mind, and I wonder if I am a Jeffrey Dahmler-grade psycho for not caring about him. I hear the latest bout of bad news and I switch off. I berate him in my head and tell him that if he's going to go, he shouldn't drag it out. I hate myself for thinking that and wonder what's wrong with me for having such thoughts. I think of seeing him and hearing him say nothing except "Gene, get thees tubes out of me, I need to go home" and how I will respond "Dad, I'm Lisa and you know you can't pull those tubes out or go home and I feel weary.