Thomas M.--1928-2012

An important chapter has now drawn to a close.  It was written in anguish and caring, and in a strange way was predicted by the movies......

My father died on a quiet Saturday morning yesterday, January 14, 2012, one day after being released from the hospital to hospice care.

Not that it matters now, but he expired from the effects an as-yet-unknown cancer.  Brain tumors appeared to be the cause of his continued falls, and disorientation.  Until then there were no apparent symptoms.

He declined rapidly, in spite of a team of medical professionals, who sometimes seemed intent on thwarting my efforts to advocate for his recovery.  He passed peacefully.

My mother, who has struggled against her own afflictions of the mind and emotion, was released from the same hospital on the same Friday, and moved into the same nursing care facility on the same day as my father.  On the same floor.  We tried very hard to ensure that they would have some time together during his final weeks.

They had one day.

When the call came in, I felt anxiety drain out of my body through the floor.  There was so much we had to do for them since Thanksgiving, and now there is so much more to be done.  One just snaps to.

Emotions came in intermittent bursts throughout the day.

Mark and I, and my sister and  her husband, rallied to my mother's side to catch the fallout of....what, we could not easily predict.  Confusion? Hysteria? Resignation? Relapse?  She had come through her treatments so well....

Fortunately, amid some uncertainty, and the normal show of grief, my mom did fine.  She was a little confused, and mistook my father's death for that of her own father 10 years ago.  No matter.  She had her way of dealing with it, and it kept her strong, and pleasant.

The staff of her nursing facility was compassionate and low-key.

Mark could not have been a better support... He did what I needed, and stayed next to me all the time.

Our friends showed themselves to be loyal and worthy of our best esteem. Phone calls, emails, and visits with food, and never intrusive, but always caring.  Thanks to them all.

I have not blogged here for a while.  The overwhelming emotion of the last few weeks, and the drain on normal energy levels, kept me from committing to this effort.  Many nights, while feeling like I had to be in at least five different places at the same time (the hospital, the nursing home, my parent's house for cleanup, the attorney's office, my own job, etc.),  I hated myself for neglecting my writing. 

A strange calm has possessed me and Mark and our little household. 

I feel like writing again.

I want to read, and follow the zany antics of the Hollywood Foreign Press.  Tomorrow will be busy and anxiety-producing.  For tonight, little would please me more than to see Woody and "Paris" receive an accolade.

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In a strange way, the movies of 2011 pay subtle tribute to our family's loss.  "The Artist" spans a few years beginning in 1928, the year my father was born.  In "Hugo", the young central character adjusts to the loss of his father.  In "Beginners", another character, closer to my age and experience, looks back on the weeks leading up to his father's death.  "The Descendants" observes a family whose mother, while not deceased, is no longer present for them.  "My Week With Marilyn" recreates the atmosphere of the mid 1950's, when my parents were married.  And "Tree of Life" looks at an average suburban family, and attempts to depict not only the origins of that life, but a speculation on their afterlife.

I am eager to return to the blogosphere, once the dust settles.....

The Child Is Father to the Man (and Woman)--A Personal Journal

My muse has been wrestling with reality lately. So far, reality has an edge in this week's match.


I have never had children.  But I am unique among my friends, in that both of my parents are still alive.  At 77 and 83 respectively, my mother and father have shown alarming symptoms of age-related decline over the past year.


I have had to reinvent myself as a caretaker of two often difficult people with difficult challenges and ailments.  There are no road-maps for people like me, known as The Sandwich Generation. *

(Although, without children, I am more of an open-faced sandwich.) 

I try my best to provide basic needs, safety and comfort to a mother whose world has finally diminished to a small space of fear and forgetfulness, of self-neglect and mindless distraction to others; and to a father who has used silence and rage in equal measure to maintain his view of life and our place in it, who has stubbornly refused offers of help or requests to discuss future plans.


In brief, there was the car accident last Spring; the trauma; my fragile mother's breakdown; my father's annoyance and denial; an initial hospitalization; treatment by electricity; frantic uncertainty; more denial, and a relapse. 


There is my father's lack of mobility due to recent falls, his rapid weight loss, and his refusal to have his injuries examined.  Cognitive decline is evident, possibly due to lack of sleep.  That is due in large part to his insistence on caring for my mom at home....


My mother is in the early stages of dementia, and chronic (maybe lifelong) depression.  After returning home last June, she had not slept a whole night, and continued to keep my father awake.  She was filled with anxiety and confusion, asked the same questions over and over, and responded with belligerence to attempts to care for her.  It had been violently chaotic. It was recommended that a hospital stay would be best.  I agreed.


In this, her second hospitalization of the year, her medical professionals have deemed her unfit to ever return home, and so tomorrow, we must look at the situation and begin to make some hard decisions.


American medicine, and our culture at large, seem unsympathetic to the helplessness and pain of old age. 


In this journal I have chosen not to dwell on these things.  I never felt that this journal's purpose was as a confessional, or as a way to elicit sympathy. I feel that unless one knows the characters involved, it is difficult to make this relevant and to foster understanding with only one or two brief entries.  There are privacy concerns as well. 


Writing this now, as a way to refocus my efforts and clear my mind for appreciation of higher culture and  the kind of writing I want to do, I realize that there is so much more to all of this. The story of my parents, as viewed through the eyes of a son who always felt responsible for making them happy, and who followed his own path with a mixture of regret and pride, is so complex, and so deep, that this could make for a novel. 


You might think you have read this story before.  But if I ever decide to pursue this and shape it artistically, and do it justice, it could be a stunner, the novel I was meant to write.  But it might be so painful, I might not recover.


At such an intense time in the life of this narrator, I felt it was helpful to share some of the events that have consumed my time and mental energy, to put them in perspective.  I intend to return to film and art and animals and politics as the rightful topics of this journal.


Perhaps, instead of avoiding this topic altogether, I might visit it with more frequency.  It would be a release for me, a therapy.  If I can write compellingly, so that others will read with keen interest, then I will grow as a writer. If I share what I am learning from the experience, it might do someone else some good.


I conclude with a brief anecdote:


My parents have never been demonstrative with their affections.  More often, as a child, I witnessed hair-raising conflict, and always felt at fault.  It was rare to see them embrace, or to hear them speak endearingly.  Last night, as I started to wheel my father from the hospital at the close of visiting hours with my mother, I saw them reach toward each other tentatively, as if to shake hands. My mother mouthed the words, "I love you".  My father replied "I love you too". 


Had they been able to do that at home, instead of maintain the horror show that was their dysfunction, I would bet that things would have turned out so much differently. 


Thank you for listening..  I will return from time to time to relate any progress that we have made.

(* If you are a parental caretaker, check out this web site designed to provide help and information, researched and written by Carol Abaya, M.A.)

Thanksgiving: Loving Friends, Memories of Family Gatherings...and Dogs

Thanksgiving, in spite of the well-intentioned efforts of my sister and I, began in a melancholy way. We did our best to give our aging, ailing parents a nice meal and some company; both of them are in various stages of suffering and stubbornness.  The meal turned out well. We cleaned up.  It was draining and sad, to see what our family has come to. I left feeling subdued.

Later, in the company of Mark, Jillian, his sons Nick and Kirk, and Nick's girlfriend Stephanie, I retreated to a quaint nearby village to enjoy a stress-free meal, filled with anecdotes, and good fun and conversation.  We convened afterward for a thoughtful and emotional new film, "The Descendants", which I will review this weekend.

With so many great films in release, and more to come, I am making up for lost time by viewing and reviewing on this blog as many as I can keep up with.  Perhaps I am at a point in my re-invention where I am finally living the life of a film critic (albeit, as yet, an unpaid one!)

In the process I have neglected some other favorite topics of interest, and have not made too many "personal appearances" of late.  I look forward to adding more variety to my posts as the year comes to a close.

And so I send this message of gratitude for the people who make this world a nicer place for me to be, especially those with whom I spent time this evening,.

And I want to remember some other creatures that keep me sane, and to whom I want to dedicate the holiday... And so, since Mark has fallen asleep on the couch across the room, I will send a short greeting to my canine friends....

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Congratulations to the winner of today's National Dog Show, Steele Your Heart, a four-year-old wire fox terrier.



The Basset Hound in this year's competition was enormously lovable, sweet, and entertaining...to me, all characteristics of the breed in general. I just had to share this video..check out the bounce, and the jowls, and that eager energy... 

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

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I miss sharing a meal with a humorous, frantically focused dog companion.  If I had my way....


Hope my readers enjoyed their day.

A Few Emotional After-Midnight Thoughts...

I have been away from my journal for a while, owing to our storm and power failure, a nagging cold, and a mild writer's block which was more exhaustion than lack of material....


The momentum returns....


Yes, the word Midnight in the title of this post is a foreshadowing of my next review, "Midnight in Paris", which is long overdue.  The experience has mellowed, and I have grown fond of the movie and cannot wait to share my views and re-view.


My mother is home now, a relief, but a whole new set of challenges, and acceptance of her inability to remember things.  Thanks to those who have given me much encouragement.  I think we're on a good path again....

It was an emotional week for gays in this country, and especially in Chicago.  After the Windy City Performing Arts Pride Concert (See review in the post below), and on the heels of Illinois recognizing Civil Unions for gay couples, New York passed a gay-marriage law. 


What an exciting and symbolic image, to see celebrations outside of the Stonewall Inn, where gay men in 1969 stood up to mistreatment and oppression and encouraged gays to stand with them. Thus the GAY Pride movement was born.

But then, just before yesterday's Chicago Pride Parade, dozens of tires were slashed on floats stored in a South-Side warehouse.  I salute the resourcefulness of the organizers and their mechanics who purchased new tires all over town, replaced them, and got the parade underway.

We missed the parade due to other obligations yesterday.  It was bittersweet.  Now that we feel more connected to Chicago's gay community than ever, we felt isolated in our own activities.   On the other hand, we were glad to be away from the huge pressing crowds.  Until we have a chance to be in the parade itself, as we were five years ago, it might be best to enjoy the highlights shot by our fine Chicago news cameras.

Please enjoy the review below of the June 16 Windy City Performing Arts Pride Concert.

Mother

Lately all I feel like doing is sleeping...
Quiet nights together at home, writing, our trips to the city, and some movies, have sustained me these past two weeks.
The following poured out of me....maybe now I can begin to heal myself during this time of uncertainty...
Many thanks to my readers...
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She barely resembles the woman I knew, strapped to that wheelchair for two weeks...

"I hate you" she said. "You want me to stay here for the rest of my life", she said...
That's the illness talking. 
Depression ate away at her essence. It has been feeding on her, maybe all of her life.
It's hard to look back and say, "Yes, I can see that now".

The shell remains; drawn, disheveled.
Hair and skin dried up from a refusal to drink liquids.
But the person she was, longing for affection and approval, who loved us as best she could, is hidden, or gone.
The reminder is there. And maybe her love remains.  
I come to see her with hope. I remind myself that she needs me, in spite of her irrational anger.


What was she so afraid of?  She has always been so frightened.
She never drove a car. So what?  A charming old-world Italian custom: Women stayed home. Women were dependent.
It was something more...She was scared to death of getting lost, of losing control.


And now she can't move from that chair. 
She is angry now, and she wants to be left alone.
I tell myself she doesn't mean it.
That awful voice inside me asks, "If it wasn't there to begin with, would she say it now?".
"There's a conspiracy against me."  "You're a bastard."
I can't listen. I won't take it to heart.


After weeks of alarming decline, she fell one night, and stayed there for hours.
Until father called the next morning.
The weary doctor had a lot of things to do. 
"Bring her in if you can.  You can't force her if she doesn't want to."
The paramedics and I decided for her.  She had stopped eating. For weeks.
She didn't know what day it was.

Another doctor assured us that the treatment was much less traumatic nowadays.
"Six sessions, and we will see a difference. She won't feel it."
The movies alarmed my imagination...Jack Nicholson's cuckoo's nest... Ellen Burstyn's requiem....  Horrendous images....

A flicker of hope...a cup of juice consumed...a few hours of laughter had returned...
...But then it all wore off...she was not responding...her anger and unhappiness returned.  "Why are you here?" 
If I leave her, she is afraid that the "lights will go out", and she will be alone.
For the first time yesterday, she uttered, "I just want to die."
She won't eat.  Or drink. Or take medication unless forced to.


"You're a bastard".  "I hate you".  It's the illness talking. 

She is like a frightened animal...a dog that bites. 
If I reach out, real pain would result.


After she returned, years ago, from a similar episode, I watched her wave at me from my rear view mirror as I drove away to start a life in Phoenix....and I cried the whole day, all the way to St. Louis, and beyond. 
I cried for being angry with her, because she would not get better for my sake.


She recovered, years later, and we never discussed it when I returned to Chicago.


I'm tired now, and feel no guilt, only profound sadness, and uncertainty.  She has three more treatments....and then...what?

I cannot expect anything from her.  I will give everything I can. 


Mother, for now, is gone.  She may never fully return.  I have to let go. 

Save what I can...Reinvent the rest....