He did die--with difficulty, which surprised me, considering he's spent the last 5 or 6 years really hating his life and his inability to "do" things because of COPD--on August 22. The difficulty came, because his caregiver from Caring Companions, Debra, and my brother, Mark, and I weren't giving him enough drugs to let him sleep through the end trauma that a body experiences. In dad's case, he was vomiting (small amounts, since he hadn't eaten anything), and he couldn't sit up to expel it, so I kept wiping it out of his mouth with Kleenexes. He couldn't really do anything at all about either vomiting or spitting it out, because he couldn't really move at all.
He'd tried to die twice on Thursday, but he revived himself both times. Mark said, "Stubborn German!"
My dad wasn't a religious man, so a friend who's a priest and who's not invested in a "perfect" service, other than that it serves its intended purpose for the living of saying "good-bye," is officiating at his funeral. And we're--Marste, Rev. Janet, and I--are writing it. We three, plus Jenna, Chelsea, and Steve (my husband), wrote my mom's service, and I got comments that people had actually enjoyed it. We all told stories, describing our relationships with Mom, and they varied depending on who was doing the telling. Plus, my mom was what I would term a "character," so that helped, too. The service was too long, because we didn't limit the time one could speak, so the stories were long, and the audience laughed. Cool!
Now, I'm supposed to eulogize my dad. Let's just say that we didn't have an amicable relationship. He beat me "for my own good" but really to relieve his stress level. He burned me, once in front of 3 other men, because he'd told them he could control my every move. And he French kissed me, so he could "critique" me and tell me how horrible I was at even this private thing. I was told not to cry like a baby or a girl--it depended on how I was expressing pain at the time, and I learned that to not obey him made whatever was going on much, much worse. My earliest memories of him are an awareness that his drinking cycle was 4 days, and the first day was a massive hangover, which made him brittle, but if I stayed out of his way, he didn't seek me out, because he felt bad physically. The second day, he'd recovered, but his stress level was lower than two days before. If it wasn't, this also wasn't a "safe" day; day two was always a 50-50 shot either way. The 3rd and 4th days were really the worst days for him, and by extension, for me. And the 4th night, he'd get super drunk, and the cycle would start again.
My mother and brother weren't aware of this, or at least, they didn't let themselves be. My brother feels that he had a "Leave It To Beaver" childhood, so more power to him. (My dad carried a Bully archetype. My mom didn't let him hit her. Period. And my brother was "off limits" because he was a boy child, and because he had diabetes at age 3. My parents felt so guilty about it, that they let him do pretty much as he wanted. He had to adhere to some rules, so he wasn't obnoxious! I was a great target: I was a girl child, and I had no "importance" in my dad's world, so I was the perfect target!)
It's now mid-January, 2010. I forgot that I'd written this, and I forget what I was going to add to it before I sent it! Sorry!
I didn't end up speaking at Dad's funeral. My brother did, and Marste did. A very dear friend said that if I didn't speak, people would decide for themselves why. Given the fact that no one knew how we really lived, they'd probably decide I was grieving. That made me madder than ever!! Ha!
I figured I'd choke on words that one usually hears at funerals. Dad was a "hail fellow well met" type of guy, and I don't know anyone who didn't like him on sight. It has always amazed me to watch people and see what they're hiding behind their facades! Ha! Marste and Jenna are even better at this than I am! Chelsea probably is, too, but she ordinarily doesn't share her thoughts! Ha!
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