Day 6...

Genocide, and people don't care.  Holocaust, Rawanda...the people that should care, don't.  #metoo

Dad.  It cannot get much closer than that.

God help me to quit being so fucking self-centered.

Even now.  Please, God.

Nursing home, flight home.  Out of mind?  Please no.
Please don't let him die alone.

Day 4...

Trailer - owned
Time - fleeting
Space - rented
Money - meeting

Home - nursing
Dad - sleeping
Oxygen - humming
Cats - creeping

Liquor - flowing
Worry - dying
Neighbors - plotting
Sky - crying

h/t Stevie Ray Vaughan, a musician my dad loves and I learned to love because of him

Day 3...

He's asleep. Early tonight...he must have been super tired, I don't know why. This frail man was and is a fighter. He did the best he could. I'm starting to think I was too hard on him. Way too hard.

Day 2...

He is sleeping like a corpse. I watch his chest move to make sure he isn't. My dad...the man who gave me life is now fighting for his.

Given up for adoption shortly after birth. Literally shoved into a hot oven by his oh-so-loving foster parent at the ripe age of three months. He must have deserved it somehow.

Could not talk, could not walk right. This man took speech lessons or whatever the hell they called it then. He learned to talk somewhat. And for his 17th birthday his loving parents showed him the door.

So he joined the Navy. And met my mom somewhere along the way. The rest is writing this.

(I was angry when I wrote this)

Later...

The toilet off the back bedroom they prepared for me leaks. The water supply into the tank never stops. And the overflow runs into the bowl. It's like a slow continuous flush. It's like God's grace...a slow, continuous flush that never stops.

Day 1...

It's quiet. My dad is asleep and I'm searching the nooks and crannies of this house he and Tamara called home. Not for trinkets but for meaning. Who was this woman that my dad loved? What was she like? The house stinks of cats. Tamara loved cats, too much maybe, but she loved cats. And she cared for my dad. I'll take the smell of cat urine and feces any day because she loved my dad.

Her family has been here. Her mom...a wonderful and strong woman, spent her time going through Tamara's papers in order to set straight her final affairs. Her brother Greg moved boxes and crap (Tamara was a bit of a hoarder) so her mom could get to more papers to sort through. Two other of Tamara's relatives seemed very nice but all of them just kept taking various trinkets out of the house. Quite rude considering her husband lay sick in the living room as they carried load after load out to their cars.

But then they left. And Dad and I got to talk. Years and years of hurt evaporated and melted during that time. Some from truth never heard, some from knowledge never understood. I was healed. He was comforted. And those others will never understand what happened between two men tonight.

A Series of Posts

This long-dormant little corner of the web has come back to life.  It's a miracle!

I will begin posting some things I wrote during a very emotional time, and continue to write.  I began writing them when I went to visit my terminally-ill dad in Oregon in January 2019.  At the beginning, they are mostly about him and me together.  My trip was originally supposed to be a 4-day visit.  But two days prior to my flight, his wife and primary caregiver, passed away.  My four day visit became a month of caring for him and helping get his late wife's affairs in order, with the help of her family.  Later, they are focused on what I am dealing with at the moment - personal crises, family crises and general observations.  They are all extemporaneous, off the top of my head.  Some are just rambling, but many are my meager attempt to write in poetic form.  I worry there is not enough context available for others to understand.  If that is the case, just ask and I will try to explain, as best as I remember.

Some of the posts reference "Day 1," etc. relative to when I arrived on Jan 9.  Later posts reference the actual date.  The transition is murky, as there was a period when I lost track of which Day number it was, hence the transition.

I originally wrote these into a document titled "I fucking love my dad."  But the subject focus has broadened since then.

They will all carry the label, ramblingsofadrunkchildofgrace.