Left Alone in Our Vanities

As you can see there’s a gap in my blog of missing articles for the past few months. I am dealing with my father who is quite ill with stroke related problems that mimic--or resolve into Alzheimer's symptoms. The situation has been quite grave and taking up most of my days.

Truly, I would not know where to begin to explain the journey I’ve been on—and still travel with a man who made no arrangements for his future, even knowing he was getting sick. From what I’ve learned from other caregivers, the denial factor of having Alzheimer's is about 95% in those over 70. Younger patients seem more willing to get involved with their healthcare and future. Those who remain in denial leave their illness to loved ones (wives and adult children), saddling them with the responsibilities of handling every aspect of their lives, including financial, person and healthcare. Daily it is the job of an advocate because no one can care for your loved one as well as you.

My dear and loved father lived in the moment and in later years strayed into that which gave him pleasure and promised he would not be alone.

God has held this up before and showed me Ecclesiastes. Verse after verse reminds me that our lives are not held up to vanity, to self pleasure and selfishness but to serve God. When Solomon speaks of vanity, I think of dad, not that he preened before a mirror but the deeper meaning; that he sought that which gave him pleasure. After mother died, he had no barometer to keep him from going deep into his own sin and selfishness. Thus, when reading the commentary of Matthew Henry, I am warned to change the course of my life, lest I be alone like dad, solely dependent upon the kindness of strangers if his children were unwilling to forgive his shortcomings.

I said in my heart, Come now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also was vanity. Ecc 2:1

This is the proposition he lays down and undertakes to prove: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It was no new text; his father David had more than once spoken to the same purport. The truth itself here asserted is, that all is vanity, all besides God and considered as abstract from him, the all of this world, all worldly employments and enjoyments, the all that is in the world (1 Jn. 2:16), all that which is agreeable to our senses and to our fancies in this present state, which gains pleasure to ourselves or reputation with others. It is all vanity, not only in the abuse of it, when it is perverted by the sin of man, but even in the use of it. Man, considered with reference to these things, is vanity (Ps. 39:5, 6), and, if there were not another life after this, were made in vain (Ps. 89:47); and those things, considered in reference to man (whatever they are in themselves), are vanity. They are impertinent to the soul, foreign, and add nothing to it; they do not answer the end, nor yield any true satisfaction; they are uncertain in their continuance, are fading, and perishing, and passing away, and will certainly deceive and disappoint those that put a confidence in them....Matthew Henry

As time allows I will be posting some more information on those who are seeking non-Christian belief systems.

On Golden Pond

God asked me to move.

Not to a new neighborhood.

God asked me to help my father who didn’t particularly want my help, and as the good daughter I’ve always been I took on a heavy yoke of straightening out his house, his finances and eventually his health.

And now he’s good and mad at me for it!

There are over 500 references to “father” in the bible, so the role of a father is important to God. Bloodline is also important to God, and that’s why the bible is loaded with “begets.” God puts parenting high in His order of things, and when our parents fail his decree, he promises:

Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. Psalms 27:10 NIV

I’m not saying my earthly father failed me entirely. He did his duty as a father. Food on the table and a roof over my head, but not much more, certainly no emotional vulnerabilities, and nothing spiritual, but I still loved him unconditionally.

And I still do.

It’s not like I’m quoting scripture and finding peace left and right. Instead, I’m in the darkest valley since my mother died of cancer. After she passed, he shortly met and became involved with another woman who he solely and unequivocally bestowed all his money and attention upon without much concern or interest in his still grieving family of 50 years. He dealt with our mother’s death by withdrawing from his past, including his children and grandchildren. They made obligatory visits on some pivotal occasions, such as graduations and a few holidays, but not without bringing with them a whirlwind of drama and hurt, always late, never with a gift ready, never with a kind or loving word and usually heading straight for the vodka or V.O. My grown daughter recently said, “Grandpa missed so much of our lives.”

“I’m helping the father I had for forty-two years, the father who would play Beach Boys on the radio on the way to hunt grunion at midnight, talk about ‘back at the ranch,’ and grill steaks on Sunday night.” I said, “I don’t know this old cuss.”

Several years into dad’s new autumn romance he had a few Ischemic strokes, which are sometimes called mini strokes. We learned later he’d had others, but he hid them from the family. He also developed a high-speed temper and for about five years spoke to me with vile bitterness. At the time I didn’t know his personality change was due to his illness, I just coiled on my therapist sofa, filling up the trash can with tissues every Tuesday afternoon. Dad isolated himself from his bloodline and took up camp with his girlfriend’s family. He ignored all my pleas to seek better medical attention, to perhaps follow up on his mini stroke. Dad’s idea of medical care was E.R. visits and short stays in the hospital. I was unable to penetrate the fortress they’d built, and trying only caused me pain.

He eventually developed Broca’s Aphasia, meaning he understood you but couldn’t respond beyond brief yes and no answers, and Apraxia, or problems with simple tasks, such as remembering to eat. His lady friend wasn’t mom. She didn’t cook, clean or do care giving things, so in the past two years, Dad grew weaker, lost weight, seemed to be struggling more with everything and when the incontinence started it flooded his need of living without his family. She wasn’t about to change his diapers.

It was this backdrop that God told me to take responsibility for dad’s life.

God said move, and I moved.

Now my father is bitter, angry towards me as he recovers in a sophisticated skilled nursing facility with top notch medical care I’ve coordinated. He doesn’t understand that the State of California intervened when he arrived at the E.R., suspecting elder abuse. According to the doctors, I saved his life, yet he’s not said thank you, or even given me a smile.

I’m still waiting for my On Golden Pond moment, where my father will tell me how grateful he is to have me to navigate his care, say thanks for spending hundreds of hours repairing his house, funding his trust and organizing and managing his finances…for saving his life. To tell me, “I love you.”

It’s not going to come. But God’s promised he’d be with me, that he knows I’m afraid. He’s promised to show me which way to go—having never been this way before.

Yet still I tremble.

Update: Eugene died Sept 14, 2009