Cairn Rodrigues's Blog: The Light Stealers Song, page 7

Other People’s Stuff

Dismantling a life is a huge chore.  If you’re reading this at home, please take a moment to glance around and take mental inventory of the room you’re in.  Disregard the big stuff and focus on the small, all the framed photos, the junk drawer, the things lining the shelves.  

It’s a lot of stuff, we all have a ton of objects to call our own.  Even in my own home, where a conscious effort to reduce clutter has been in force for almost five years, there is still too much stuff.

Now the task of going through my dad’s house is mine.  I’m the sole inheritor of his worldly goods and it’s a daunting chore.  A year ago or so, before the cancer diagnosis, Dad starting going through his own things.  He sold quite a bit of his “inventory” off.  I can’t imagine how big this would be if he hadn’t done that, but there’s still plenty left behind.

My dad was an only child, both of his wives were only children.  His house is crammed full of his stuff, his late wive’s stuff, his parents’ stuff, their parents’ stuff.

STUFF.

Most of the really valuable antiques were sold by him already, but there’s always more.  I made promises to him before he died, one of those promises was that I wring every penny possible from the sale of his estate.  Fortunately, there was no time limit on that promise, because I am slow.

It’s hard, going through Andy’s drawers.  Sometimes too hard, like when I found the “special” drawer next to his bed.  I ran screaming from the room and made someone else toss that particular stuff.  

Part of me feels terribly disloyal for displacing his things.  I still don’t feel like they’re my things.  Every time I throw away a broken measuring spoon set or decide if an object goes in the 25 or 50 cent box, I wonder if Dad is yelling at me from the great beyond.

Mostly, it’s weird to be in his house and he’s not there.  He lived there for 50 years, he’s imprinted on the walls.  I still hear his voice, I still feel his presence and even my small acts of defiance inside the walls don’t diminish the impact of his absence.  It’s just not home without him.

But I have to be strong and do this one last thing for Dad.  Compared to all the other stuff since his diagnosis, this should be the easy part, but it’s the hardest part.  He was here for all the other stuff, you see, but I’m doing this solo.  None of his advice or micro-managing, none of his stories, I feel his loss most keenly when I’m surrounded by his stuff.

So I go, every day and do a bit more.  There’s help when I ask, and I do ask when necessary.  But I’m still protecting Andy and making all the decisions as he would make them.  Most of them anyway.

Three hours each day is all I can manage.  Psychologically, and physically, the work exhausts me but progress is being made. Some of my choices he wouldn’t approve of, but I have to do what’s best for me.  That hoard of hotel soaps is much better served going to the homeless shelter than staying with me.  

This is how I say goodbye, slowly and reluctantly.  As hard as his illness was to cope with, coping with his absence is the toughest thing of all.

I miss Andy and hope I’m doing right by his memory.

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Twitter Chronicles

Howdy Travellers!

Episode three of my new video series, Twitterati, went live yesterday.  It’s easy enough to find on YouTube but, because I think you guys are awesome and I love getting page hits on my blog, here it is as well.

Please enjoy…

 

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Dog Tags and Dirty Jokes

The call came Friday night, I knew who was calling and why before even picking up the phone.  It was the nursing facility and my father is dead.

It was a call I’d been expecting most of the day, to be honest.  March 21st was my dad’s birthday, he turned 84 on the day he died.  Since it was his natal day, I stopped at Vic’s Ice Cream on the way to visit to get him a vanilla milkshake.  But he was too out of it to even acknowledge me, let alone the shake, and I knew the end was very nigh.

He’d been asking me the same question since moving into the facility a week earlier, he wanted to know how to die.  He was done with his life and wanted it all to be over, he was tired, his body failed and he was done.

I don’t know if he could hear me by that point, but I did finally have an answer to his question.  Andy spent his life saying NO, it was his first response to pretty much everything.  Frequently, he would change his mind to yes within seconds of saying NO, but the negative was generally first.

So I told him to stop saying no, to ignore his gut instincts and say YES to everything.  Maybe death was trying to take him all week, but kept getting scared away by that NO.  I also told him again how much I loved him, how great a dad he was and that he left his mark on the world through me.  I promised to make him proud and carry on like I was taught.

Then I kissed his cheek, said good bye and waited for the phone to ring.

Dad was prepared for his demise.  He’d already made and paid for his burial arrangements, and I was told MANY times not to alter the instructions in any way.  He didn’t want a funeral or memorial, no fancy casket, no frills of any kind.  Saturday morning, I went to his house before meeting with the funeral home people.  In a drawer in his bedroom, I found his dogtags and slipped them on.

Immediately, I felt him.  Those dogtags made me feel so safe and secure, I wore them the whole day.  Of all the things he left me, the dogtags are what I cherish.

Andy didn’t want a memorial, but I still need to throw him a proper send off.  For me, not for him.  So, I posted on Facebook and opened up the comments section to dirty jokes.  My dad loved a good dirty joke, he loved to laugh, and my friends did not disappoint.  Some old chestnuts, some fresh material, he would have loved every joke.  You can read the jokes by clicking here.

Andy was also a big animal lover, he rarely said NO to a dog or cat.  Usually, it was an emphatic YES, you can have all the chocolate chip cookies you want Little Dog.  But I digress.

Today, I’m setting up a memorial fund with the SPCA for my dad.  Maybe the end of his life can bring solace to the lives of strays in the area.  I’m sure that’s a memorial he could be pleased about.

If you have a dirty joke for Andy, I’d love to hear it.  You can leave it in the comments section below, add it to the Facebook canon or even tweet it with the hashtag #JokesForAndy .

Because life is hard, but laughter can soften things up.

Thanks for all your support, Travellers

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Free Enterprise

Isn’t it amazing how many Star Trek references I can pack into these blog post titles?

Click to download me for free!

“Free” is the word of the weekend, and it’s one of the finest words available.  A quick update on my dad:  He’s still failing and isn’t very communicative, today is his 84th birthday and I’m hoping he will enjoy the vanilla shake I’ll be taking out to the nursing facility.

Let’s face facts.  This will probably be his last birthday and his last vanilla milkshake.  But we shall not mourn, instead this weekend we are celebrating his birth and his life with a gift for everyone.

THE LAST PROSPECTOR IS FREE FOR KINDLE DOWNLOAD ON AMAZON.COM MARCH 21 -23!

Say Happy Birthday to Andy by getting your own copy for free BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE!  (Go ahead and get it now, I’ll wait….)

Awesome!  Now you have a great story to enjoy this weekend.  But what if you’re still at work, what if your free time doesn’t come for hours and hours?  Not to worry, please enjoy a fresh, new episode of my series Twitterati.  A few chuckles to make this Friday fly by and ease on into the weekend.

 

Have a great weekend Travellers and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

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Kobayashi Maru

Mr. Spock once said that how we face death is at least as important as how we face life.  When I first heard those words over 30 years ago, it was an interesting idea with ramifications I couldn’t grasp as a teenager.

Truthfully, I much preferred to run with Captain Kirk’s manifesto, that he didn’t believe in the no-win scenario.  It’s a very comforting thought, if I try hard enough, think creatively enough, then I can find a way out of certain doom.

When Wrath of Khan (The original.  The only.) first came out in 1982, we were introduced to the Kobayashi Maru.  It’s a test for Starfleet cadets that puts them in a situation they are bound to lose.  Ostensibly, it’s in place to judge the effects of life or death situations on future officers, but young Kirk reprogrammed the computer so he could win that fight.

The Kobayashi Maru is on my mind a lot recently because I feel like I’m trapped in a no-win scenario.  No amount of creativity or genius will get me out of this one.  The only way out is to hope for the one thing I’ve been trying to avoid for months.

My dad wants to die and I have to want that for him.

Him being placed in a skilled nursing facility is the one thing we have been fighting against since his cancer diagnosis.  But that came to pass last week, he is beyond the help I can give him, he needs professional care.  He is aware, dimly, that he’s in a nursing home, but since the incident last week, his awareness of most things is dim.

He has only one thought, he keeps saying that he’s already dead but no one will take his body out of this hell.  He’s not eating unless I’m there to give him a cold Boost shake, even then he doesn’t finish it.  Dad wants to know why he’s still alive, why he must suffer so if he wants to go.  He wants me to find the answer, find the magic words to release him.  

But I don’t know the answer and I’d give all the blood in my veins for those magic words.

He’s suffering and we both want it to stop.  It’s the no-win scenario, I don’t want my dad to die, but death is the only thing that will ease his suffering.  I find myself praying for his death, asking my creator why must my dad go through this, why can’t it just be over for him?

As usual, there aren’t any answers.  Death is as mysterious as life, perhaps mysteries that aren’t ever intended to be solved. I don’t care to solve the mystery, I just care about my dad and how I can help.  Maybe I care too much about helping, maybe I take on too many problems that aren’t mine.  It’s a fair assessment, but it doesn’t change anything really.

It’s bitterly ironic to be writing this post on this day, the day our oldest daughter would turn 30 had she lived.  18 years ago, we were faced with a similar choice, a different no-win scenario under completely different circumstances.  But the options were exactly the same, life or death.  Then, as now, we couldn’t choose life.  Then, as now, death is the only option to mitigate the pain of those we love most dearly.

If I could choose to end my father’s life right this second, I would.  I don’t want him to die, I don’t want to live in a world without him.  I also don’t want him to spend one more second begging for death, I love him enough to let him go.

Please, just let him go.

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The Ugly

Wasn’t it about 50 years ago that I gave myself permission to have a little fun and made a video?  Wait, what?  It was last week?

Huh.  It seems like long-forgotten ancient history now.  A lot has happened in the 50 years since last weekend.

My dad is in a skilled nursing facility.  It’s the last station where he’ll catch the eternity train and be released from the ever tightening mortal coil.  Some of you may recall that I made the decision to put Dad in a facility a couple of weeks ago.  If only I’d gotten my way then, if only others had listened, it would have been less traumatic for my father.

But life unravels according to its own design and modern death is ruled by committee.  The powers that be (the hospice) deemed my dad to be of sound and rational mind to make his own decisions.  When it became tragically obvious they were wrong, other powers that be (the hospital, the VA, Medicare) treated him like stray luggage.  No one would claim him, each insisting he was somebody else’s property.

Getting ahead of myself.  On Tuesday morning, my dad’s housekeeper tenaciously went in through a window when he didn’t answer the door.  She found him lying in his own waste on the kitchen floor in front of an open refrigerator, he’d been there for at least a full day, probably longer.  She called me, called 911 and was a genuine hero.

Andy called me on Sunday, he was agitated, but he’s always agitated.  We had an agreement that I would step back from his care and let the hospice bear the brunt of it.  He wanted me to worry less about him, to stop spending all my time caring for him.  He wanted to be left alone, was sick of being poked, prodded and fussed over.  The hospice said I was overreacting, since I lack perspective, I took their word for it and got about my own business.

That mistake is on me, I should always trust my instincts.  But I am and have been emotionally overwhelmed for months, it was easy not to trust myself.

The experts said he was fine and he ended up in the ER, severely dehydrated, unhinged and hallucinating.  He accused me of signing him up for a sitcom or reality show that was secretly filming him from the fireplace.  Finally, it was obvious to everyone else that Andy couldn’t be on his own anymore, which is when he became a hot potato.

There was nothing the hospital could do after the fluids, there was nothing to treat and they wanted him out.  Beds are at a premium in hospitals, but he couldn’t go home.  It was obvious to anyone with eyes that Dad was now in need of a high level of care.  He can’t even sit up in bed, can barely feed himself.  But the VA had to sign off on skilled care and the VA moves slowly when it comes to paperwork.

That’s the unsung side effect of American cancer you know, paperwork.

The hospital pushed me to put him into a private pay facility that didn’t seem to me to be the right level of care, but they were insistent.  Money became an immediate concern because private pay facilities are expensive.  Plus I had to now consider a mounting hospital bill.  The housekeeper was supposed to call the VA first, I suppose, not really sure how it works.

Anyway, after some VA foot dragging and pressure from the hospice, Dad was finally moved to the skilled facility.  Fortunately, it’s covered so I can stop agonizing about finances on top of the real agony.  All of this waiting, all the phone calls, all the paperwork, decisions and necessary channels were unnecessarily traumatic for both my father and myself.

I can’t stop revisiting the ugly truth.  Most of it could have been avoided if the hospice hadn’t dropped the ball.  They should have listened when I said he needed more care, my dire prediction came to pass almost exactly.  The hospice nurse should have at least called me when my father didn’t answer the door for his appointment Monday morning.  If either of those happened, my dad wouldn’t have suffered as much.  I wouldn’t have suffered as much.

I’m sorry if my story rambled, it’s still a rancorous jumble of memories and guilt inside my head.  If anyone has some perspective to offer, I could surely use it.

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Twitterati

Good morning Travellers!

Recently, I’ve written a lot about my journey through cancer with my dad.  It’s been a very emotional time and having this blog to sort through it all has been my savior.

“cancer is the most fun you can have,” said no one ever.  My life has been devoid of fun for months now.  Seriously, the most fun I’ve had in months was watching the entire series of Breaking Bad in a week.

TV is my escape valve, always has been.  Recently, Holly Jahangiri and I have been playing with video G+ hangouts and it got me to thinking.  Since the technology to make videos is usually sitting right on my lap, I wondered what would happen if I made my own show.

Just having the idea was fun.  I am now president of my own network, I gave my pilot the green light AND picked me up for a full season with options.

My new show is called Twitterati, it’s a weekly round up of the best of Twitter.  I had a blast making this and can’t wait to make some more.  So, please, get comfortable for the premiere, I hope you enjoy Twitterati

 

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Pinball Wizard

 

My life is like a telenovela without the mariachi interludes or chickens.  

The last post in this space found me at rock bottom with my dad.  It was sink or swim time, I had to make a choice.  After much agonizing, it seemed like a skilled nursing facility was the only place he could receive the kind of care he needs.

Getting to the point of making that decision was one of the hardest journeys of my life.  The metaphor of being a silver ball trapped inside a pinball machine is how I’ve felt since last summer.  Confined, reacting instead of acting, powerless to stop the momentum.

Things got worse when I found out the hospice still considered him rational enough to make his own decisions.  I explained that he was on his very best behavior for the psychiatrist, that he’s not stupid.  But the fact that he was sly enough to know when to be on his best behavior is the deciding fact.  If he’s in a right enough mind to con the shrink, he’s in his right mind.

I’d like to argue with that, but can’t really.  They are correct.

For a while there, I was bereft.  I felt powerless to influence my own life, trapped by my love for my dad and obligations I thought were owed.  This little silver ball was exhausted, emotionally drained and permanently bruised from being slammed into bumpers.

Pinball was one of my first true loves in life.  I still get excited if I walk into a new place and see a pinball machine, I want a Martian Revenge machine in my living room.  When I was a kid, very few people could beat me, my skills were MAD.  But 30 years later, I somehow got under the glass, I became the ball and not the wizard.

Somehow in the morass of despair, I remembered something important.  Being the pinball or being the wizard is a choice.  

So I chose.

I officially resigned as caregiver to my father.  He has a roster of caregivers at the hospice, if he wants to stay at home, he will have to play by home-care rules.  If he chooses to ignore their instructions, I won’t run interference anymore.  My choice was to stop enabling his less desirable personality traits and put him back in charge of his own life. 

So much peace came with that decision.  The invisible weight fell off my shoulders, my lungs expanded and my jaw un-clenched for the first time in months.  I can no more cure Andy’s belligerence than I could cure his cancer, neither of those things are my job.

My job is to be his daughter, to love and support him as his child.  Three days ago, I was angry, furious.  With him, with  myself, with life in general.  The responsibility of being his caregiver overshadowed our relationship and I didn’t want him to die with us being angry at each other.

Visiting him yesterday was a uniquely peaceful experience.  He listened to what I had to say, he agreed it was best for us.  My impatience for his usual tricks was restored to its normal setting of generous tolerance, there wasn’t any yelling.  At all.  Which might be a first, because even when we’re not angry, we usually yell at each other.

We talked yesterday about letting go, releasing our iron grips on objects, dogmas and fears.  We are both combative by nature, perhaps now is the time for peace.  The battle is over, it’s time to tend our wounds and tell the stories, to wait for the bittersweet endings.

Andy only played pinball once or twice, to bond with me.  He never understood how it was I could be so graceful, athletic and reflexive at this one stupid thing when I can’t even catch a Nerf ball lobbed gently right at me.  Seriously, I suck at hand/eye coordination in real life.   Whatever, he respected my skills, he still talks about it.

He’s worried about my future after he’s gone.  It’s natural, parents never stop worrying about their children.  He wants to provide for me, the sweetness of that breaks my heart, and grills me endlessly about my estate management plans.  I’m not to blow my inheritance on shiny cars and fast men named Julio.

I think you all know what I’m going to buy.  Yep, a pinball machine.  Life is too short not to play the one sport at which I excel.  It will be my link to Andy, my tangible reminder of a great dad and a reminder of my great truth.

I am not the pinball.  I am the wizard.

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Let This Be The Last Battlefield

My dad can be a jerk.  Over these last few months since I’ve been blogging his cancer, some of you readers might get the sense that he’s a lovable curmudgeon. Andy isn’t that lovable, he’s a rude, narcissistic, belligerent man with racist leanings and a quick temper.

Yes, underneath all that is a loving guy with a mushy heart. But you pretty much have to be me to see it, I’m the only one left who can see. When you spend your life being belligerent and intolerant, not many people are going to hang around to see how your story ends.

Since my father’s diagnosis in September, I have played by his rules. I’ve done everything his way and done my utmost to make his remaining time as pleasant as possible. But “pleasant” is not a word in my dad’s vocabulary. Pleasant was never a concept he grasped. Andy S. never did pleasant, so there wasn’t anything to fall back on when the cancer started eating his body.

He fell back on rude, narcissistic, belligerent and racist. Now that’s all he is.

I’ve expressed some fairly raw emotions on this blog, but this is the nitty gritty. There is no more strength left for artifice, martyrdom or pleasantries. Since my husband’s suicide attempt last summer, I have been under emotional siege. I have been fighting battles incessantly and I am tired.

I’ve lost my sense of security, my kids and my fucking dog since last summer. There is no respite, no cessation of hostilities. It’s been one big pinball machine of misery and I’m a frenzied silver ball who can’t break the glass, who just keeps getting slammed into bumpers.

Yesterday was supposed to be my day. One of many days I’ve tried to give myself since the cancer started. One of many days that was ripped away from me and I am sick to death of being the one who sacrifices. I am over losing the precious days of my life catering to someone else’s death.

I can’t do it anymore. I fear the next sacrifice will be the one that breaks me, there isn’t anything left to give. No one’s death is more important than my life, my well-being.

The next sacrifice will have to be made by someone who is not me. It grieves me to say this, but my dad has to go into a facility. He won’t allow the hospice nurse in more than once a week, he won’t allow her to take his vitals when she’s there. He’s confused about his medications and not taking them properly. He’s not eating right. He has numerous small medical problems that aren’t getting tended.

He hates hospice because he considers it an intrusion on his life. Well boo-freaking-hoo. There haven’t been anything BUT intrusions on my life. A fair amount of those intrusions were caused by my father’s personality flaws and I was forced to drop everything to fix them.

No more.

The best thing for both of us is that he goes into care. I don’t want this, I hate this. But it’s the only recourse left. I am NOT going to move in there and be subjected to his ongoing hatefulness 24/7. In-home care would just be a nightmare, if anyone does manage to finish a shift with him, they wouldn’t come back for a second.

When the phone rang yesterday, and I knew in my bones that “my” day was once again put on hold, something inside me fractured. I can’t run from this any longer, I can’t pretend, deny or sacrifice.

He has to go into a skilled care and I have to be the one to tell him. One more time, I strap on my armor, trudge my bruised bones into the fray and go get bloody. This is going to be awful, horrible, having to tell him. He’ll be furious, he’ll call me names and tell me I’m worthless, heartless and ungrateful.

The worst part is that I have to do it alone. The decisions fall solely on me, the actions are left solely to me and the battle is fought solely by me. Somehow, I need to summon up enough strength to fight this last battle, to stand my ground and enforce the decision that’s best for both of us.

One of the over-arching themes in my book is free will. We all have to choose, we are all free to choose. I’ve made my choice, it’s either his happiness or mine. It’s him or me.

I choose me.

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LeBron James’ Mask Is Made From Bitcoins

Did you catch that bit of SEO skullduggery?  I haven’t recently watched and PTI, so I know nothing about LeBron James’ facial gear. And what is a Bitcoin?

But since you’re here and all, why don’t you do me a solid by clicking this tweet.

I got conned at The Light Stealers Song today. Since I'm a great human being, I tweeted this anyway
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Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been under siege lately. Nothing but drama, heartbreak, cancer and tears. Gawd, I am SO sick of being Princess Pitiful. It’s been a nice week, full of not-drama, and today I just want to goof off blog-style.

Here’s a funny picture.

I’m glad February is over. While I excelled at being a daughter, I failed miserably at being a book seller. Miserably. I’m trying not to let it get me down. While it’s much better in the long run of life to be an excellent daughter than a bestselling author, as usual I want both.

Seriously people, I can handle it. Multi-tasker is practically my middle name. Ok, my middle name is Ann. Cairn Ann Multi-Tasker Extraordinary Daughter Wannabe Best Selling Author Rodrigues.

Yes, my mother was a visionary.

Buy The Last Prospector on Amazon so Cairn can stop being a wannabe best selling author.
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Here’s a video of my strategy for world domination via the written word.

 

Did I tell you all that I finally got a new laptop? It’s an HP15 with many fancy bells and whistles, most of which I don’t know how to ring or blow. But that is not the point! The point is that it comes with a built in camera and microphone. SO NOW I CAN WASTE TIME ONLINE VIDEO CHATTING WITH FRIENDS!

In fact, Holly Jahangiri and I are doing a G+ hangout version of #BlogCrawl tonight on video. I’ve nicknamed it Boozy Video Chat and it’s sure to pop up on someone’s blog soon enough.

With this newfangled video technology, I’m considering the occasional video blog for this space.  Who else wants The Last Prospector Sock Puppet Theater?

I demand The Last Prospector Sock Puppet Theater!
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On the home front, we are getting a bit of rain.  That’s big news in thirsty California.  My poor garden is woefully untended but hopefully will get some love soon.  Tyra Jackson, the cockatiel, continues her love affair with Viva kitten.  V continues her love affair with fuzzy balls and a stolen piece of butterscotch candy that is her favorite toy.

My love affair with TV is ongoing.  I recently caught up on Sherlock, which was perfectly fine but I’m not in love.  Finished season 2 of Revenge, I do so enjoy a glitzy soap opera and now want a home in the Hamptons.  Last night I gave Scandal a try and Henry Ian Cusick is in it!!  Oh yeah, I’m going back for seconds.

Henry Ian Cusick

 

If you read the interview on Bob Sanchez’s blog, you’ll know HIC is my premier choice to play Prospector in the inevitable miniseries.

@hicusick is an awesome choice to play Prospector in the inevitable miniseries.
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Sigh.

The time has come to end my silliness. I hope you enjoyed this respite from reality. If you don’t want our time together to be over, how about you head over to Amazon and purchase The Last Prospector? There’s drama, silliness, giant cats and it’s a much better reality than this one.

 

Click the pic!!

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