Life and such
Nov. 12th, 2006 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
namasteSorry. No fic, no discussions of “House” (except tangentially), just personal stuff and an invitation to bash Bush or do something good -- or both, depending on your politics.
My Dad passed away this morning. He was 85, so he had a good long life, and was able to do much of what he wanted to do until the last couple of weeks when he developed pneumonia. Actually, for a while we weren’t sure what he had. The diagnosis went from basic pneumonia, to possibly a fungus of some kind, back to pneumonia, to even sarcoidosis, to some other kind of infection ... One of my nieces at one point in the ICU waiting room said “We need that Dr. House guy.” My family, for the most part, isn’t aware of this interest of mine, so I giggled quietly in the corner.
It turned out to be a rare pneumonia, acute interstitial pneumonia, also called Hamman-Rich Syndrome, as we found out after multiple specialists and tests. It only hits healthy lungs, doesn’t respond to normal treatment methods and typical diagnostic tests are inconclusive. (Should this end up in a fic, you’ll know why.)
Regardless, he was fairly comfortable for the most part, but we knew his lungs wouldn’t make it, so we all had a chance to get together and visit with him and each other. I know of many other people who have lost parents early, or seen them suffer for years, so this was a bit of blessing, as these things go.
Of course it also presented opportunities for our family’s sense of humor to show up in its usual odd ways. My father, on the last night I saw him, was complaining about his bed. “This thing is torture,” he said through his oxygen mask. “They ought to send it to George Bush. He can use it at Guantanamo.”
The fact that my Dad had my birth certificate -- and none of the other seven kids (that’s right, I’m one of eight children) -- stored in his financial papers immediately became the running joke of “because you’re his favorite.” What should we have for supper? Let’s ask Namaste ... because “she’s his favorite.” I win a hand of cards while we’re all sitting in the waiting room? Well of course I would. “I’m his favorite.” I get the last bottle of Diet Coke in the machine? It’s because: “You’re his favorite.”
I walked in to see my Dad one day and have him look at me and say: “You’re not my favorite, you know.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Dad,” I said. He claimed, of course, that he had no favorites.
At another point, we were talking to my mother about how I’ll be taking over paying her bills so she won’t have to worry about it. My brother Dan says he’ll stop at the store and pick up some supplies so she can mail me anything she gets that she doesn’t understand.
Dan: “I’ll get you some vanilla envelopes.”
My sister Alberta: “You mean manilla.”
My brother Jerry: “Make mine chocolate.”
My Dad made his own casket -- and one for my mother -- a few years ago. It was a combination of his enjoying working with his hands and also being Dutch and cheap. (My father, in response to one of the nurses who commented she won’t tell any Dutch jokes: “I am a Dutch joke.”) Well, these caskets have been stored under their bed for the last few years. Yes, that’s a bit creepy. Of course they used to be stored under the guest bed, which was really odd when I’d wake up at 3 a.m. and it would suddenly strike me that I was sleeping on top of my parents’ coffins.
The casket storage also required them to raise the bed a few inches. My Dad was a bit short, and he built himself a step to get in and out of bed comfortable -- which was immediately dubbed the “Stairway to Heaven.”
Well my mother suggests this morning at 5 a.m., when we got the call from the hospital that he’d died, that we should get his casket out from under the bed and get it out of the building before anyone else woke up. They live in a senior citizen apartment building, and it was easier just not to tell a bunch of people in their 70s, 80s and 90s that there were caskets being stored there.
So at 5:15 or so, my brother Jim and I are hauling the casket out, trying to get it out before anyone else is up. We nearly made it. One of the widowers spotted us as we were loading it on the truck.
“Someone moving out?” he asks.
Jim thinks for a moment, then nods. “You could say that.”
Anyway, the point of all this is just to say that if you have the desire, say something political about Bush. My Dad would love it. He was, as you can guess, a Democrat and anti-war -- “I kept saying we shouldn’t go to Iraq, but Bush never listened to me,” as he noted a few days ago.
Or swing a hammer for a building project. He was a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity for several years. Or give someone a ride. After retirement he was a volunteer driver for social services, giving people rides to doctor appointments and the like.
Or just enjoy someone’s company for an evening.
And, for what it’s worth, I’ll be fine, the family will be fine, my Mom will be fine.
Peace, everyone.
My Dad passed away this morning. He was 85, so he had a good long life, and was able to do much of what he wanted to do until the last couple of weeks when he developed pneumonia. Actually, for a while we weren’t sure what he had. The diagnosis went from basic pneumonia, to possibly a fungus of some kind, back to pneumonia, to even sarcoidosis, to some other kind of infection ... One of my nieces at one point in the ICU waiting room said “We need that Dr. House guy.” My family, for the most part, isn’t aware of this interest of mine, so I giggled quietly in the corner.
It turned out to be a rare pneumonia, acute interstitial pneumonia, also called Hamman-Rich Syndrome, as we found out after multiple specialists and tests. It only hits healthy lungs, doesn’t respond to normal treatment methods and typical diagnostic tests are inconclusive. (Should this end up in a fic, you’ll know why.)
Regardless, he was fairly comfortable for the most part, but we knew his lungs wouldn’t make it, so we all had a chance to get together and visit with him and each other. I know of many other people who have lost parents early, or seen them suffer for years, so this was a bit of blessing, as these things go.
Of course it also presented opportunities for our family’s sense of humor to show up in its usual odd ways. My father, on the last night I saw him, was complaining about his bed. “This thing is torture,” he said through his oxygen mask. “They ought to send it to George Bush. He can use it at Guantanamo.”
The fact that my Dad had my birth certificate -- and none of the other seven kids (that’s right, I’m one of eight children) -- stored in his financial papers immediately became the running joke of “because you’re his favorite.” What should we have for supper? Let’s ask Namaste ... because “she’s his favorite.” I win a hand of cards while we’re all sitting in the waiting room? Well of course I would. “I’m his favorite.” I get the last bottle of Diet Coke in the machine? It’s because: “You’re his favorite.”
I walked in to see my Dad one day and have him look at me and say: “You’re not my favorite, you know.”
“Thanks for clearing that up, Dad,” I said. He claimed, of course, that he had no favorites.
At another point, we were talking to my mother about how I’ll be taking over paying her bills so she won’t have to worry about it. My brother Dan says he’ll stop at the store and pick up some supplies so she can mail me anything she gets that she doesn’t understand.
Dan: “I’ll get you some vanilla envelopes.”
My sister Alberta: “You mean manilla.”
My brother Jerry: “Make mine chocolate.”
My Dad made his own casket -- and one for my mother -- a few years ago. It was a combination of his enjoying working with his hands and also being Dutch and cheap. (My father, in response to one of the nurses who commented she won’t tell any Dutch jokes: “I am a Dutch joke.”) Well, these caskets have been stored under their bed for the last few years. Yes, that’s a bit creepy. Of course they used to be stored under the guest bed, which was really odd when I’d wake up at 3 a.m. and it would suddenly strike me that I was sleeping on top of my parents’ coffins.
The casket storage also required them to raise the bed a few inches. My Dad was a bit short, and he built himself a step to get in and out of bed comfortable -- which was immediately dubbed the “Stairway to Heaven.”
Well my mother suggests this morning at 5 a.m., when we got the call from the hospital that he’d died, that we should get his casket out from under the bed and get it out of the building before anyone else woke up. They live in a senior citizen apartment building, and it was easier just not to tell a bunch of people in their 70s, 80s and 90s that there were caskets being stored there.
So at 5:15 or so, my brother Jim and I are hauling the casket out, trying to get it out before anyone else is up. We nearly made it. One of the widowers spotted us as we were loading it on the truck.
“Someone moving out?” he asks.
Jim thinks for a moment, then nods. “You could say that.”
Anyway, the point of all this is just to say that if you have the desire, say something political about Bush. My Dad would love it. He was, as you can guess, a Democrat and anti-war -- “I kept saying we shouldn’t go to Iraq, but Bush never listened to me,” as he noted a few days ago.
Or swing a hammer for a building project. He was a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity for several years. Or give someone a ride. After retirement he was a volunteer driver for social services, giving people rides to doctor appointments and the like.
Or just enjoy someone’s company for an evening.
And, for what it’s worth, I’ll be fine, the family will be fine, my Mom will be fine.
Peace, everyone.