Today I’m taking IN-N-OUT Burger to my dad for lunch. Church gets out at 11, which gives me just enough time to get there before the crowds swarm into IN-N-OUT. He’s in a care home, so I’m bringing lunch to him instead of taking him out. Dad’s pretty much home-bound these days.

Dad asked me to take him out for dinner to get a burger the other day, which prompted me take action. He said, “Tell you what, why don’t you and me go out and get a hamburger for dinner.” I replied, “They’re already fixing you dinner.” Unfortunately, I can’t take him out anymore. Sad to say, bringing lunch to him is the best I can do.

Dad has his good days and his bad days. I never know which I’m going to get when I go to visit him. On a bad day, he’s lost to me, barely communicating. On a good day, he interacts with me.

First, my mother declined, which started with a stroke.

Saying Goodbye to Our Beloved Mother/Wife

Next, we moved my father off the farm to a retirement facility that he and Mom were considering before she got sick. Dad mostly agreed to this. There, he was reasonably content but missed the homeplace/farm.

The move was a necessary move for a number of reasons. Mainly because of safety issues. We had to move him again, when three years later he began to have health issues and became increasingly forgetful. My two sisters have made multiple trips to California. They’ve been so good. My oldest sibling made six trips from Idaho in one year. My siblings and I began this caregiving journey in 2015.

At times I have to buck up. I go through different seasons in my daughter role. I am the person in town that is Dad’s most frequent visitor, simply because I live less than a mile from him. It’s draining, especially when he has emergency E-R visits, but that’s to be expected. As dad drifts away from us, we adjust to his new normal, which always involves some kind of loss.

It’s Not All Peaches and Cream

I miss the dad I knew, he’s changed so much. Yet, Dad’s still there, coping as best he can. I’m realistic, though. I accept what ‘is.’ My siblings and I have gone the gauntlet from denial to acceptance. We’re all in this together. We’ve had to negotiate and work at it. The journey’s been daunting at times.

However, I’m happy to say my siblings and I support each other and our dad. We’ve made it work.Two of them live out of the state. My sisters routinely come for visits. Each sibling has a specific role in this journey we’ve been on. No one is a slacker. My oldest sister would call from Idaho to read scripture with Dad. They’ve read through the whole New Testament, she, reading her bible and Dad, reading in his. He no longer can do this. I am grateful for her effort to care for Dad’s spiritual health. This communal effort gives me great joy.

I Changed. We Changed. We All Changed

For months/years we siblings have done our best by our parents. It’s been an awesome, as in, challenging, task. There are many aspects we’ve had to address. Our parents are/were extremely private people. Basically, we knew their wishes, but they weren’t ready to let go or to let us help them. We had to gently push in. Sufficient to say, we’ve negotiated and pondered as we’ve dealt with an a sundry of complicated, sensitive matters. It’s not been seamless. It’s taken resolve and a willingness to work together in spite of where we may differ in opinion. I believe we’ve drawn closer together.

I Learned to Listen

Dad has opened a window to the past and how he views the past during my visits with him. I’ve loved this aspect of the caregiving journey. Let me share a few.

“I made the right choice when I married your mom. We had a good life together.”

“I’ve had a good life. I can’t complain. There’s nothing I would change. I have no regrets (pause) except one (his voice subdues, and he shakes his head slightly while looking at me). Lois.” He doesn’t continue, the sadness of her memory silences us.) Dad could never speak of her untimely death.

Dad shared many memories of boyhood on the family dairy farm, where they grew the feed they fed the cows and kept a team of horses to work the farm. He explained how the silos worked. He said his mother drove the team, scoured the milk barn twice a day, raised from seed the tomato plants they grew on the farm. His childhood was fun. Dad made mudpies. He and his sister pretended that empty Ovaltine canisters were their stomachs. He made a scooter from a motorized skateboard that he finagled in some way. There were a confluence stories he shared. I would write them down to preserve them when I got home. It’s good that I did. (they’re in an unpublished book)

IN-N-OUT with Dad. He’s enjoying it.

Note: I wanted to post this now, instead of later. I don’t know the future.

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Now, for my new feature. A positive story from the archive of heartwarming stories I’ve been collecting.

Heartwarming Stories

11-28-21-In a text from my daughter.

Yesterday it was the sweetest. We setup our Christmas tree in the evening and Braxton and Brailyn (foster children, ages 4 and 6) were so enthralled. These two seem to have such minimal typical life experiences. It was just magical watching their eyes light up. Braxton was just staring at the tree once it was done and said, ‘the Christmas tree is very beautibul. It’s very beautibul.'”

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