It was noon before we stopped for gas on the last leg of the 5,000 mile trip, and already the temperature had hit a sweltering 101 degrees in Waxahachie, Texas. I sat patiently, watching the traffic on the freeway while my husband filled the gas tank. Tractor trailers, pick up trucks, RVs, Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, some new, some old, some so beat up they looked like they were on their last trip, I watched them as they sped by, wondering about the occupants who were anticipating arrival at their various destinations. I couldn’t help think about the drivers of those vehicles; some would be on business trips, some on vacation, some going to be with a sick or dying relative or burying their parents, like I did just two weeks earlier. Some would make it safely to their final destination, some would not. Some would be happy, some would be sad.
My sadness was gone, not the loss and the emptiness, just the sadness. I knew my parents were in a better place; no more suffering, no more longing to, “go Home.” Three years earlier, my 86-year-old mother, the love of my Father’s life for 65 years passed away. And now Dad was gone too.
Mother lived a good life, was a very devout Christian woman and raised five wonderful daughters. She had her ups and downs, living through World War II, waiting for her husband to come home from fighting for and defending his country during the battle at Iroshema. She lived through the depression and she knew what it was to stand in line for dried powdered milk and eggs, and blocks of cheese, the stuff they called “surplus food.” She knew what it was like to clothe her children in hand-me-downs; she knew what it was like to raise five girls and see them all graduate from high school, marry and have children and grandchildren. She always prepared home cooked meals and baked goods from scratch; scrubbed floors on her hands and knees; washed clothes in a wringer washing machine and hung them out to dry on the clothesline, sometimes freezing in her hands as she pinned them to the line; but she was happy and loved life.
For the last half of her life she lived with one lung, the last few years needing oxygen 24 hours a day. Even as she grew weak and tired she never complained. The closest she ever came was when she said to me, “Honey, I’m tired and I just don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
Although her daughters would laugh when she’d say, “If I go before your father, God help you girls,” we all knew how true that statement was. He would be a handful; how could he live without her after 65 years?
The truth of the matter was that he couldn’t.
He would sit for hours by himself thinking and praying. He always prayed for the same thing, to go “Home.” For the first year, he puttered around the house; maybe puttered is not the right word, it was more like existing, moping and missing her so much. Shortly after the first anniversary of her death, things took a turn for the worse.
He was alone, so very alone without her. As he got lonelier, things started meaning less and less to him. There was nothing funny anymore, nothing beautiful and nothing left for him to live for. He had gotten so negative and always found fault with everything and everyone. He was so angry that the love of his life had gone “Home” and he was still here on this earth that he learned to dislike more every day. It was always too hot or too cold; things were ugly. He didn’t care about his prized tomato plants, the squirrels he used to feed, sitting out in the backyard under his favorite tree where he spent hours everyday before she was gone, he just didn’t care about anything anymore.
Oh Dad, look how pretty those flowers are!”
“They’re ugly.”
“What do you mean they’re ugly, they’re so full and colorful.”
“I hate them.”
“Dad, you don’t mean that, Mother loved to look out this window and see those beautiful flowers blooming.
“Well, I hate them.”
One evening while watching one of his favorite game shows Dad looked at me and said, “Look at all those girls on TV. They all have blonde hair. You know it’s not natural, why do they all have to dye their hair? Bunch of fakes.”
And….
“Why do you have to wear that jewelry and paint your nails? Decoration, all that decoration.”
One night while watching The Biggest Loser with one of my sisters, he remarked, “Look how fat those people are, how do they let themselves get so fat?” She explained to him that was the reason they were on the show to lose weight, and he said, “They shouldn’t get that fat and then go on TV.”
But most of all his favorite words were, “I’m ready to go Home. I want to die, I don’t want to be here anymore.”
It’s heartbreaking to hear a parent say they want to die, but he felt he had good reason. The love of his life for 65 years had passed on and left him alone. Not really alone, his five daughters loved him very much and two of them were within 10 minutes and would visit him often. But in his mind he was alone the day he lost Mother.
They met when they were in school, but she thought he was the funniest looking guy she ever saw. After high school, they went their separate ways and didn’t see each other again till he came home on leave from the Army. A friend invited Mother to double date with her and her boyfriend. She accepted and was surprised to see that her date was that same funny looking guy who didn’t look so funny anymore.
They dated when he was home, corresponded while he was gone and when he finished his time in the service, they married. A couple years into the marriage they gave birth to a baby girl and over the years four more daughters were born. He worked hard, two and three jobs to take care of his family. He was a wonderful husband, father and provider. For many years he worked at an airplane engine manufacturing plant during the day, and painted houses and built and repaired chimneys and roofs in the evening and on weekends. He even sold life insurance; he was good at everything he did and made sure his family had all their needs met.
He believed in and loved the Lord, raised his daughters in the church and preached to anyone who would listen to him. He was full of life, a very spiritual man.
But depression doesn’t care about any of that, it can take over your life, your mind and your soul. It can disguise itself as grief and sadness. How can you tell the difference? And what do you do about it, how do you deal with it? Especially when it’s your Dad and he’s 90 years old.
The last year and a half of his life were extremely hard to deal with, frustrating, expensive and so sad. He decided he was sick and dying, even though he was in good health for a man 90 years old. He declared to the family that he was dying and decided he was going to die on his own couch in his own living room in his own home and not in a nursing home. He had himself convinced he was dying and laid on that couch till his bed was brought downstairs where he lived his last days. His daughters did the best they could to take care of him until they had to hire caretakers to be with him round the clock.
At first he would eat and try to walk with a walker for very short distances, across the living room. Eventually he would not get up and became very weak; he quit taking his medications, eating and drinking. Two days after his 91st birthday he died of a broken heart.
Watching the deterioration of a parent or loved one brings on a flood of emotions; love, sadness, pity, frustration, helplessness and anger. Yes, I would become angry with him for not getting up and trying to stay active instead of just laying there until all his muscles atrophied and he could no longer get up. But what I refused to understand was that he had no will to do any of those things or care what any of us felt or wanted, he wanted to go “Home.”
My parents were cremated and buried together in a little hillside cemetery in Pennsylvania in August.
Today, back home in Texas, my peace comes from knowing they are happy and together again.
