5 years

Five years ago today, my dad died.  He was in one of my dreams the other night and I got to hug him.   It's taken a long time to feel really okay about all this.


(revision:  I wrote this when I was terribly ill, which accounts for the fact that it's actually been SIX  years since he died.  Leaving it as-is.)

August equals Alzheimer's Anniversaries

August is a month of anniversaries relating to Alzheimer's for me. My dad's birthday. The anniversary of when his aunt died of dementia, right after my dad got diagnosed. My parents' wedding anniversary, and also the anniversary of the next-to-last time he flipped out (the next one being the one that got him removed from the house a couple of weeks later). Also the anniversary of when my dad's mother died, although she didn't have dementia that I know of, I believe she died of cancer (never met her even though she lived 1 town away and died when I was 16--long story). I lost a couple of pets in August too, my beloved black cat Zen and my sweet rainbow lorikeet Gwennie.  
So August, for a long time, has not been a happy month.  And when I was a child, before any of those bad things happened, it was dreadful because it was the end of summer.
August is a time of reflection for me, to remember all this stuff.  There's nothing to learn from it really, nothing to gain except making myself sad.
And because I've been thinking about my dad a lot, since it's August, it's not surprising that he popped up in a really weird dream the other night.  In the dream he came back to life, and he wasn't so dementia-y (is there such a word?) although he wasn't 100% back to normal, and he lived a few more years.  I was walking up Route 5 going from car dealership to car dealership telling everyone that my dad was back alive again.  Because it did seem like he had died and been cremated but somehow came back from that.  And in real life, there is just about every car brand known to man available on Route 5, from BMW on the North Haven line to Cadillac and Hyundai on the Meriden line, and my dad worked for a lot of them in his 40 years in the business.  Why I would walk that 10 mile line instead of calling people is another dream mystery!  Then he died again, in the dream, and we had to hold his memorial service all over again. 
And I woke up thinking, I never saw my dad dead.  When I got to the nursing home his body had been removed from his room, and if it was still there (I imagine it was, it had only been an hour or so) they didn't offer to show me.  At the funeral home that afternoon, the director went and got me my dad's Alzheimer's alert bracelet, and it was cold like it was in a fridge, but again, I didn't see him. 
Now I start getting all paranoid.  Did my dad really die in 2007?  Even though his bed was empty at the nursing home and he was in it 15 hours before, unresponsive, maybe they had moved him and it wasn't him who died...and he's been alone and unvisited for 5+ years in the nursing home...
Gods, how awful would that be?  I can't even imagine it.
I think it's a common wish-fulfillment kind of dream.  We're getting to the time that my dad SHOULD have died.  He was diagnosed in 2004 and they said he'd live 9-11 years and that was 9 years ago.  He should have still been with us.  And maybe if he hadn't hit his head twice, he would still be here, who knows?  Or he might have killed my mom or someone else.  No way to know.
If there are other dimensions constantly spawning off, the lands of opposites, maybe in some of those worlds my dad's alive and okay.
And maybe he's just in the Elsewhere Bar, having a birthday beer.
Happy birthday, happy anniversary, wherever you are, Dad.

186 buffalo bill's defunct

My father's birthday just passed, our first one without him, and next week is my parent's anniversary. That marks 1 year since he was beating my mom in the yard and when the neighbor tried to help he got bitten by the dog.
In honor of my dad, I re-wrote ee cummings' famous poem "buffalo bill's defunct":


Bob Rizza's
defunct
who used to
drive a calm oceangreen
pickup
and sell onetwothreefourfive chevysjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a quiet sweet man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
(unfortunately I can't seem to maintain the proper line spacing to match the original)

164 First Christmas with no dad

We had our first Christmas without my dad. As most of you know, I'm a pagan, so I don't celebrate Christmas as a holiday--no tree or anything--but every year I do go to my parents' house and have a big lunch with my husband's family and my grandma, pretty much like Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was weird because my dad was alive, but not there. For Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law brought mounds of shrimp cocktail, which was what my dad always ate (he'd eat just shrimp cocktail if given the chance!), and mostly it just sat there. I felt awful because I wanted to pack it up and bring it to him, but of course he wasn't eating anymore and died a few days later, so there was no way he could have enjoyed the shrimp even if we pureed it.
Christmas was sadder, because he wasn't alive or there. And there was the plate of damn shrimp. Does she not learn? Only my dad ate it. My mom had been halfway through decorating for the holiday when he died, and she thought it was ghoulish to have everyone over after the service with her happy decorated house but it also felt stupid to take it all down. My grandmother wanted a tree, so she put it up.
But of course no one really talked about my dad. I don't think people know what to say. My mom did say that she meant this year to be his last Christmas at home--she was going to start looking for a nursing home in January. So none of us knew last year was his last set of holidays. . . but then again, you never know, do you?
It was also weird because it was basically the 1 month anniversary of him dying too--Nov 26 to Dec 25.
His wedding ring is still MIA. Months ago, he went to bed with it on one night and woke up without it. My mom had stripped the bed, shook out the sheets, looked under the bed and still hasn't found it. She did find his old Red Sox hat (the one I wanted to burn with him) and it's on top of his cremains box on her dresser. The hat was hidden somewhere bizarre; I forget where she told me she found it.
My husband asked me if I missed my dad and I said no without really thinking about it. And he gave me this look, like "how could you say that?" and I explained, also without thinking about it: "He's been gone a long time."
I have his obituary tacked on the bulletin board next to my desk at work and I just love the slightly goofy picture of him I picked, of him hugging his cat. Mostly when I look at the picture, I smile.

I've talked about grief in general and my grief specifically with some of my friends. Grief is a selfish thing. We're sad because we don't have the person anymore. We're not sad because that person has lost everything s/he loved, sunsets and soft kittens and cold beer (although I'm sure they have plenty of the latter at the Elsewhere Bar)--and that's the true tragedy--but because we have a hole in our lives shaped like the one we've lost.
The hole in me where my dad was isn't even dad-shaped. It's just a blob. As my dad wore away, I became less dependent on him. I needed him less because I was forced to go to others for the things he used to do for me. (Buying a car without him is going to be a nightmare. I'll miss him that day, that's for sure.)