FRAGMENTS OF A RAINY SEASON : 1
(with apologies to mr. Cale)
Almost a year ago, on Christmas Day, my father had a stroke. We realised it because he wasn’t picking up the phone. At 89 he was still living alone in the basement flat he’d (we’d) always lived in central Lisbon since he married my late mother in the 1950s. He was perfectly autonomous and we would check in regularly. That morning he didn’t pick up the phone. I was one of the people who called to wish him a happy Christmas, and when he didn’t pick up I just thought he’d gone out to lunch. And then my brother called.
Flash-forward. Today, my father has been since January in a private clinic where he’s taken care of by trained nurses. His left side is entirely paralysed, though he can do some things with his right hand. His mind, however, has gone downhill ever since. He still recognises me, my brother, his grand-children and great grand-children, and he can engage with what’s showing on the television news (no, really).
But, for him, engaging with the television news is really engaging with it — talking with, and to, the people on screen and hearing back their answers. He doesn’t always seem to be aware he’s in a clinic, but he’ll think he’s in his house; he’ll ask us to open the door of the closet (which he thinks leads into the kitchen) and call my mother (who died ten years ago); he’ll say he has two nurses sleeping next to his legs in his bed. He also says we now have a stepmother and six more siblings, and asks about my elder brother, who died a couple of years ago, on Boxing Day.
(My family always had a bit of a sitcom history, to be fair —I guess all families do in their own way. My father is now living in one, up to a point.)
It’s difficult seeing him like this.
Yesterday, my brother called saying dad had been transferred to the hospital because of a urinary tract infection. He had one for which he was in hospital a couple of days, just a few days before Christmas 2018. Before his stroke. His infection persisted throughout his time in the hospital after the stroke; because of his heart issues, the doctors have to strike a delicate balance between the blood thinners he needs because of his heart issues but that have adverse reactions with the antibiotics for his infections, and the antibiotics that can’t be given with the blood thinners but that may clot his blood and lead to another stroke.
It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
My brother deals with this by being there at all times, visiting dad daily, making sure he’s not alone. I understand why he does that. It’s not my way of dealing with it, especially because it’s very demanding on yourself. Watching somebody disappear on a daily basis is terrifying.
I, on the other hand, evade. I don’t want to see him like this. I rationalize: what’s the point of visiting him when he doesn’t necessarily realize I’m there? But also, it makes me think about the life my father led, and the life I am leading.
When I was in college, I wanted to go as far away from his life as I could go. Dad instilled in me a love of reading, music, cinema. He worked from home, as a free lancer, but never really had time to himself; all he ever did was work and provide for the family, to make sure we were all properly educated and could earn our lives comfortably, unlike him. He didn’t really have a life of his own.
And now I’m a free lancer who writes from home, toiling away at my computer, watching films and reviewing them for a living, covering film festivals, translating books, providing for myself but struggling like my dad did for most of his life.
Like I’ve come full circle, back to where I started from, through tortuous and different paths, my own paths, but still back to that desk and the window out on to the street helping me work in daylight.
And my dad has lost his mind, in a way. Like he lived for 90 years in this world, provided for his family and in so doing abdicated of every dream and every possibility and didn’t enter the doors that could have led him down different paths. From our stoic and awkward conversations, when we went to lunch every week after my mother died — because my dad didn’t really like to speak about himself anyway — I kind of understood he was tired of life. He had nothing to live for, being 89, living alone; waiting to die, in a way, now that his life had become a litany of doctor’s appointments, lunches on his own or with his children, trips to the supermarket, watching television most of the day.
My dad’s not dead. He’s in the hospital right now. I love him very much, even though he would not like to hear it, and even though I could not bring myself to say it to him either. We got that from him — our inability to speak emotionally, to let our true feelings out. So instead of speaking to him I thrust my feelings on the page. And in doing so I realise just how much I’ve been holding in about my dad, and about how much I am like him while refusing to accept that I am very much like him. Like some sort of therapy. Like knowing all I want to do and then feeling that braking pedal inside me that says “hold your horses, are you really sure you want to do that?”
Maybe I am, but I’m scared of doing it. I was always scared of telling my dad what I really thought. Because he bottled it all in, he knew that if he let it out it would come out in a fiery, terrible explosion, he would not be able to stop himself and would later regret it. Like a bull seeing red, unable to contain it any longer. I’ve been there; I’ve had those explosions too. But I try to not bottle it all in. As much as I can; and then I look at myself harshly and realise, yeah, I’m just like him in that way too.
My dad’s illness has cast a shadow over the past eleven months. It has made me think, seriously, in the background, like a process running constantly, about life and love and what really matters in the world for me. And I know that what matters is my husband, and my cats, and my family, and my friends I don’t see enough of, and knowing I am good at what I have chosen to do. But there’s still so much to learn, and my dad’s illness is still making me question everything.
(I’m a bit of an OCD anyway, so that was always going to happen anyway. )
Still. At 51, what is it I want out of the life ahead of me, since I can’t change all I did until now? It’s difficult to face yourself honestly, and see where you did good and where you did bad. My dad’s illness has forced me: now I have to face myself or risk continuing evading things. Unlike my brother, I know I can’t take care of my dad right now: the type of care he needs is not something I, or him, or anyone who is untrained to do it, can do. We learned that the hard way from my mother. But isn’t that kind of an escape as well?
