Brainstorming

I am feeling a bit more positive than I was in this morning’s post, Dad got up for a while around 2pm, I laid on the couch dozing on and off, keeping my eyes and ears on alert. He fell on Wednesday, big gash on his head, poor Pops.

It happened while his caregiver was here, she called me saying there has been an accident. I believe the first thing you should tell a loved one is that the patient is OK before you dump the accident stuff on them. It keeps from shaving a couple years off their lifespan, because, as a family member, your heart just falls out of your chest when you hear,

” Hello, Ms. Kiko? There has been a terrible accident…”

What is the first thing you think of? Yup, I thought so: That he is dead or maimed or otherwise terribly injured.

So, I had been dropping off a painting at the Art Gallery, so I raced the 10 miles to the hospital in rush hour traffic, all the while telling myself that, as a law abiding Christian, I should be setting a good example and pleasing God by obeying the speed limit. I really tried, and I do always try, but that is a difficult task when your Dad is lying helpless and afraid in an Emergency Room.

I hit the Hospital doors at a trot, had my ID already in hand to be checked in, and rushed down the hall to his bedside, ready to find him at death’s door.

Of course, the scene that greeted me was quite different!

“Hiya there! Where have you been?”, he laughs with a big smile.

He smiles his most charming at the cute little nurse who is taking his blood pressure.

“Are you Ok, Dad? I heard you had a bad fall!”

He looks at me quizically, “Did I?”

I could just pinch him, but he looks so little and frail in the big hospital bed, so I kiss him on the cheek instead. Now I can see the big gash on his scalp, and blood all over the pillow. Oh, my, I think, here we go again. I just cannot bear him spending any time in this hospital, this is the place where he fell twice in May, the place that caused him so much anguish mentally, the hospital that hastened his Alzheimer’s Disease and broke his spirit, and the place where I had to face the reality of my losing him. Imminent. On the Horizon.

I hate that hospital. I told Dad’s doctor that I am trying to sue them for what they had done to him, and the doctor brings me back to reality: I am going to do whatever is necessary to get your Dad better from this fall…

Now I feel like a real heel, like that wasn’t what I wanted too?

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs:

  I DO NOT WANT TO FEEL THIS!!!!

I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH MY FATHER DIE!!!

WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS FALL TO ME? TO SEE MY PARENTS, TO SEE THE PEOPLE I NEED, THE PEOPLE I LOVE, TO SEE THEM ALL LEAVING?

TO SEE THEM ALL DYING.

TO BE LEFT HERE all alone.

But, I did not say anything except , Ok. Thank You.

Now you understand a little more why I am so tired today, this month, this year.

Each day that goes by I feel a little more dead myself,

all tied up in my solitary cell, watching my life pass by.

I know deep inside that I want to do this, and I want to be with Daddy till the end. I just get so lonely at times. But I don’t mean to sound bitter. I am grateful for everyday I have. Just feeling a bit sorry for myself tonight. It will get better- I promise!

I will place my burdens on Jehovah tonight, He will hear my cries for help. I will pray in Jesus dear name, and Jehovah will breath new endurance into me.

His promises will all come true.

We Are Home…Aren’t We?

He sleeps hours on end while I fret.

He sits up in a recliner while I cook and fret.

He gets up to pee, yep, I fret.

He fights me over using his walker, my fretting heart pounds, fretting hands shake.

He is sad that he scared me, I feel guilty for that-and that makes me fret.

He smiles again, now back in bed, I try to lie down too.

I am fretting so much, I get up and clean,

” The visiting nurse will think I am an unfit caregiver…”

” The health department will take Dad away…”

” I better make more jello…”

Fretting, I twist my hands together and bite my lip.

” I must rest! Lay down and rest Kiko! Ok, ok I will…”

“Just as soon as I mop that backroom, there was a spot of kitty puke…”

” Oh, and there…oh, and there…there…there.”

” I really must quit fretting and lie down, I am exhausting myself…”

I lie down on the couch, heart pounding, back burning, mind racing.

Willing myself to rest I feel the room move away, and a warm cloud embrace.

Breathing slows, muscles begin to loosen and sleep is at the door…

He wakes up…I leap up, fretting that he will fall before I get there.

My mind feels like it is full of silver needles in a messy pile,

the needles are the shiny lines where my thoughts should be.

When they find us on the floor, which one will be on the bottom?

Fretting, I go change into clean knickers just in case.

Except I don’t have any, cause I have been fretting to much to wash.

I would have to leave him, and go outside to the washer.

He looks up from his cushy pillow, under the nicest comforter.

He says, “I love you.”

“Sit down now, and rest.”

The fretting stops, the faith flows in, and I lie down next to Dad,

and rest.

Wake Up! It’s Time to Get Off the Fence!!

Lift your eyes high up and see

our Creator is angry to the Nth degree.

We have fouled up His Garden, we have broken His laws,

the Word that He gave us we spat out, we gnawed.

 

What is left to happen now, you ask…

Maybe you wonder how to find His way?

He has not abandoned you,

He loves you…today!!

 

Don’t be so cool that you pass up your life,

or that of you family, your  husband, you wife.

Your kids are waiting for your reply,

Please ask for forgiveness, you just have to try!

“i’m not sure how my feet work yet…”

What’s a Girl Gotta Do?

Just wait, I’m gonna knock your socks off with my bohemian style, just as soon as I can move around better! I have So many stories to tell, I just don’t have the juice just now. Wait for me…I’m getting better all the time! Oh, the screaming? Don’t pay any attention-I have a tendency to overreact when I have the length of my spine CUT OPEN,and MY BONES MOVED AROUND!!!!AAAAHHHHHH! I want to cry, but it just makes me hurt worse.So I will attempt to put my head down for a while, and I will bite the proverbial bullet…(maybe ice cream will help?) See ya tomorrow, and thank you Matt for sticking by…:-)

The Cold East Wind

   ” Breaker’s Tony “

           This is the name our whole town knows my father by, a name derived from the “billiard parlor” dad and my brother used to own. He was a younger man then (he’s 86 now), and the local high school kid, serious players, and young ladies alike all flocked to him. He has always been a charismatic man.  At one time in a much different world he was a tap dancer, a writer, a metalergist and x-ray specialist, a service man in the Army, and an all around self absorbed meanie as a father. And I love him beyond measure, really beyond what others think I should love him due to his past treatment of our family. 

           He is my Dad, and my hero in so many ways, and I am losing him. Inexorably, as each day goes by, he disappears a little more. There are often times when he is angry, but his anger is no longer directed at his children, or my deceased Mom. No, his anger is towards eyes that don’t see as good and ears that cant hear, at a dancer’s body  now wizened with age that does not respond in the graceful way it once did. Now his spine takes a hard curve to the right- the result of a bunged -up  hip replacement 20 years ago, so that he bumbles about with a cane. But the worst of his anger is directed towards a mind “full of cotton-wool”, as he describes it, a mind in the clutches of what I know to be severe dementia. and Alzheimer’s disease.

            Thankfully, he spends more of his day happy than angry now. We feed birds and look at flowers, enjoy old movies starring Humphrey Bogart and others of Dad’s time. I am here to care for his needs, and I try to fulfill his wants too, which aren’t many: a quiet house to sleep in all day, a short walk with the dogs in the afternoon, and a cheeseburger and Coke from a fast food joint, now and then. I was severely injured in a fall lat April, which cut my pool playing career short, and kept me from taking Dad down to the local billiard parlor to shoot. At 85 he could still shoot the lights out in 9-ball, and he taught me everything I know. Even today, if we were to step into the pool hall, there is  no doubt someone would call out, “Tony!!!”, and throw out a hand or offer a hug.

             I’m glad I have had these years to be with him. I hope I have cushioned the blow in some small way. I know one of these nights when I tell him goodnight, it will be the last time I ever do. I hope he sleeps good…

         

baring it all…

I have been keeping a journal since 1976, but I’m a little behind the curve on blogging. I am not quite sure how to do this, or how it will turn out. However, I love to learn, and understand that I will make mistakes in the process. I’m not sure that everyone feels this way,
I see many people in the news who have trouble admitting they were wrong. So much trouble that they have to resort to shooting someone, or injuring someone to prove their rightness. When I was in high school in the late 70’s, in a large suburb, none of my peers ever thought about bringing weapons to school. And I was one of the “burnouts”, so I knew almost all the bad kids. If anyone had a weapon it was a pocket knife on a martial-arts type weapon. And these were never used to hurt anyone, just to show off with.
But I turned to drugs and alcohol, and I also turned violent. When I left public school and my addiction progressed, I took pleasure in fighting. I enjoyed being mean to people who were different than myself. I was ignorant and cruel, and predjudiced because it was popular with the gang I hung out with. But inside my gut, I was sick of myself. I had an inner voice that was telling me to stop hating, to stop doing immoral things. Over the years I squashed this voice, I drown it own, I drank it into silence. I tried suicide more than once to shut the voice up completely, but I was (thankfully) unsuccessful.

To help you to understand who I am, and how I became this person, I would like to share various life-shaping incidents with you. I want to try, through sharing my experiences, to help you readers identify and shape your own life’s journey, and to do this with less fear. I do not want to preach, and I absolutely do not suggest or recommend any sort of health treatment, or suggest how one should live. I do want to entertain, to excite, to rouse you with my writing. I hope I do not bring back sad memories to anyone, but in this blog I will share my experiences with the loss of loved ones, so please be forewarned. I will also talk about my experiences with Addiction, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Cancer and Dementia, as well as other illnesses. I always want to share HOPE with you. I hope you choose to read my work, and I hope my writing brings you pleasure. Read on!!

One summer day, while attending a picnic that my Dad’s company had hosted, I watched my “then” boyfriend get mean-drunk. He began to stumble around, and to say bad things to me about my family, so I convinced him to leave. On the way home , he became more and more verbally abusive, until I asked him to just drop me off at my house. He veered up to the curb in front of my house and then sped off before I could get out. We had taken some LSD before the party but it had not been an enjoyable trip, now I was just exhausted. I begged him to stop the car, and when he did not-I just opened the door and jumped out.
The pavement came up fast and hard to connect with my head, and I was unconscious for a few moments. When I came to all the neighbors had surrounded me , and had carried my back to my house. I still remembering the boyfriend standing in the background saying,” She just jumped out! I don’t know why she jumped out!”
They laid me on the couch in the living room while my father got the story straight. My boyfriend kept trying to get in the front door, and my dad kept shouting at him to leave. Finally, the boyfriend, in his drunken insanity turned to my father and said, ” Mr. Kikonizzy- you are a real @#&$ head!” Well, that was all it took. My short, stocky Sicilian father blew up to the size of Arnold Schwartzenegger, and bodily lifted up the idiot and threw him approximately six feet across the yard! I was never so proud of my dad.

I wound up breaking up with that fellow, but the incident was a catalyst for change in that I was questioned about drug use at the emergency room that night, and I finally told my Mom the truth about my drug use. She was flabbergasted to find that, at 15 years old, I was a regular pot smoker, alcoholic, and had tried or regularly used cocaine, speed, crystal meth, LSD, mescaline, Quaaludes and ant other drug that had been offered to me. I did not confide in her at that time to the gang rape or physical and sexual abuse I had suffered since I was 13.( She was shocked and saddened enough, I could not confess to any more.)

We truly became friends after that, she opened up to me about her doubts and fears as a mother, and about her deteriorating relationship with my perpetually rotten father. We could see the outline of the bigger problems that had shaped our relationships, and meetings with a child psychologist began. I now had someone I could tell my fears to, and after I was done trying to shock her I started to hear the voice of my childhood self again. It was not very loud, but I knew that the real Kiko was still inside, wanting out.
This peaceful time was soon to end, but for the meantime I felt loved and safe… (to be continued…)