Where've You Been?

All I got here Is the rear view mirror The reflections of where I've been So you tell yourself I'll be back up on top some day But you know there's nothing waiting up there for you anyway

But nothing lasts forever Your best efforts don't always pay Sometimes you get sick And you won't get better That's when life is short Even in its longest days

-John Mellencamp

Longest Days

Back on the farm after sneaking away to see my folks in north Dallas. It was necessarily a high-speed pass for us, with work piling up in my absence. The weather didn't allow us to fly, so Peg drove part of the way and I worked on my computer in the passenger seat.

We arrived at Dad's house in Plano on Friday afternoon. There was still a wreath proclaiming "Merry Christmas" on the door. The yard was a torn-up mess after plumbers replaced the line running to the city sewer and charged Dad and Johnnie $38,000.00 for the whole exercise. Seems like elder abuse to me.

It was jarring to walk into the family room where Dad spends his days now in a wingback chair watching TV, and find there next to him a wheelchair. He cannot lift himself out of the chair, can't use a walker, can't stand at all without assistance because he can't feel his feet anymore. He talks about getting back surgery to fix all that, but we both know that'll never happen. There's a brown bloodstain on the carpet next to his chair where he fell one day and hit his head. Johnnie couldn't pick him up, so she just laid down next to him and hugged him while they waited for the EMTs to arrive.

Dad and I have had our political dust-ups over the last couple years, as have a lot of parents and children in this awful MAGA era. The last time we spoke on the phone I hung up on him when the name-calling started. I was dreading the potential for another such encounter on our visit, and P and I talked on our drive about the contingency of perhaps leaving and finding a hotel if things got out of hand.

But, thankfully, they didn't. In fact, Dad and I had maybe the best conversation of our lives, mostly about his. I slipped into lawyer mode and started treating it a little like a deposition, asking follow-up questions about anecdotes I'd heard in one form or another my entire life. At one point I pulled out my phone and hit the "record" button, hoping to pickle all of this information I'd probably forget at some point and not pass along to my own boys. Peg and Johnnie also talked for hours back in the kitchen, and at the end of the evening we joined them, Dad in his wheelchair, and continued the conversation until well after everyone's bedtime. No one wanted it to end.

The next morning P and I slipped out for coffee, and when we came back Dad and Johnnie were already awake, the earliest I've seen in a long time for them. We visited for a while, but it's never the same on a morning when everyone knows it'll be time to leave at some point. Johnnie fixed us a big country breakfast mid-morning, and after gorging on biscuits and gravy we said our goodbyes and loaded up the truck for the drive to Mom's. Dad seemed sad. I kissed him on the top of his old head before we drove away.

After a quick grocery stop and a trip to Cavender's to buy Peg a couple pairs of boots for the farm, we made our way to McKinney to see Mom and Bobby. As I've probably mentioned before, Mom has struggled with mobility for a while--the rheumatoid arthritis came on in her 30s, and she's had eight spine surgeries over the last couple decades. The most recent one was in January of 2019, and since then she's suffered a series of small strokes that make speech a struggle. I think she's in a lot of pain, all the time, but she never mentions it. Her coffee table is a massive buffet of pill bottles.

When we arrived, we found that Katie was staying at the house for a few days and helping Bobby with Mom's care. Mom can get around with a walker, sort of, but needs help with all of her activities of daily living, and like Dad can't stand for any amount of time so she sits in a Lazy Boy in front of the TV in their family room. The aphasia makes conversation fairly one-sided, and it takes me a while to adjust to the fact that she's not sitting there judging me--she just can't talk, and has trouble finding words.

Mom's Christmas stuff is still on display, as well. I wash my hands in the bathroom using a Santa soap dispenser. No one seems to notice.

Peg and I drink a lot of wine. Katie joins in. We adjourn to the kitchen table for a supper of KFC that Bobby has brought home, and I slip into my lifelong defense mechanism of turning into a wannabe stand-up comic, making every topic of conversation into an extended joke. Peg mentions a doctor who's made a mission of sterilizing feral cats around his business, and I take off on a riff about how we should be promoting abstinence education among cats instead of making it harder for them to get pregnant, and start bemoaning the fact that they've taken God out of our animal shelters so of course the critters are engaging in sexual experimentation. I get a couple thin smiles but no real laughs, which is okay because this exercise is mostly for my benefit (sort of like this blog).

Peg falls asleep in front of the TV by 8:30 or so, and we take our leave for the night. Dean and Slane wander the house all night, and end up walking all over Bobby as he sleeps on the couch. Bobby apparently sleeps on the couch a lot after he gets Mom settled into bed.

Again we slip out early the next morning for coffee, and arrive back to find everyone awake. The news warns of a winter storm already brushing the western suburbs of DFW, so after Peg fixes a gourmet breakfast for the household we take our leave and try to beat the storm out of town.

That journey will likely be the subject of tomorrow's meander on this page.

Today there's a little melancholia at the thought of that visit. No one is ever going to get better. This health war for my parents has become a series of holding actions, then gradual surrender and retreat until their last bastion is a comfortable chair from which they never arise except to go to the bathroom or to bed. Will they ever see the farm? Will they ever see my sons again?

Their houses are full of ghosts for me, reminders of days when relatives filled the space and both of them were vital and active. Now there's only the drone of the TV. The blinds are drawn. Their amazing spouses, and Katie, heroically attend to their needs, but are all obviously exhausted. There's nothing to talk about except the news, and the news is exceptionally bad right now. I could talk about our own work and travels, but have figured out that someone who was once a master of their domain, now trapped in a failing body slouched in a comfortable chair, doesn't much want to hear about all the great things they'll never experience again.

And P and I are only a couple decades away from all of that, a time that will pass in the blink of an eye. Hence the almost manic making up for lost time, trying to live our last healthy days to the fullest, knowing we can see the end of the road from here.

I'll be more cheerful tomorrow.