Author’s note: I am not sure why I have chosen to write this, except as a catharsis. I have no application, no lesson here. Only lament. If you like doleful essays, then read on. Perhaps you have had a similar experience. If so, please share in the comments.
“I think your dad has dementia,” the woman’s voice said from across the continent. “You need to come see him.” It was February of 2018. I hadn’t seen my dad in 5 years but we talked often and emailed until he retired from commercial real estate and property management.
It wasn’t until May that year that I could travel to see him, living in a little hamlet in Washington called Winlock. He rented a room in an old farmhouse from a woman named Cheri. He had surrounded himself with his collection of Native American knick-knacks, New Age books, and crystals. My high school graduation photo was in a dusty frame on his desk, next to a picture of his deceased wife from 25 years before.
Back then, Dad had lucid days, which masked the severity of his dementia. He cooked, did dishes, and gardened with only the slightest hints of something being off. But then he would have a bad day, and forget where he was, or why he was behind the table at a farmers market, or where I lived.
That trip was the beginning of the end of my dad. He has since lost most if not all of our shared memories. He doesn’t remember what The Lord of the Rings is, which he introduced to me in 5th or 6th grade. He doesn’t remember taking me hunting, or our camping trips, or any of our old jokes. Everything I brought up was just a reminder that he doesn’t remember anymore. He doesn’t remember he has met my wife multiple times, or that he has a grandson, or how old he is.
In 2020 he had a falling out with Cheri, who did not need to be responsible for him, but also kept forgetting that dad had a mental illness and couldn’t be expected to always refrain from doing dumb things like putting the cat food in the oven. I was able to work with Washington’s Department of Human Services and get him into an assisted living facility, which at first he refused until one day he didn’t know where he was and decided it was time. He has lived there for four years and now is in the locked-down memory care unit. He is well taken care of there by the staff. He will die there.
Cheri would guilt me into trying to get Dad to come live with me. “He needs to be with family. He is all alone. He could live in a trailer in your backyard, all he needs is an extension cord. You don’t care. You’ve cast him aside and forgotten about him.” Sometimes I would ignore her, and other times I would listen closely.
Washington state, unlike Texas, caps the cost of assisted living facilities for patients with only social security as their income. Taxes pay the rest of the cost through the state. This has challenged my conservative politics. But when I finally learned this, I was able to put to rest whether or not I should bring him to Texas (against his will, which he stated repeatedly. He hated it here). There is no way I could get him the same level of care for the amount he is paying through social security; rooms easily cost 4x as much.
Dad could have lived near me, but he has consistently chosen to leave. He left my mother when I was 18 months old. I had never really thought much about that until I had my son. Then I realized that Dad hadn’t just left Mom, he had left me. There is no way I could do that with my son, but he did. Twice. He left my half-brother and his mom when he was an infant and has, to this day, never met him. For years he wandered through West Texas and New Mexico, having out-of-body experiences and smoking a peace pipe while sitting around a medicine circle and praying to the spirits. He didn’t show up again until my stepdad tried to adopt me, an action he fought in court somehow while living out of a backpack.
But I didn’t know these things when I was young and so I hadn’t resented him. When I was a teenager he had moved to Austin and I got to see him a lot, every other weekend and Tuesday nights rather than just every other holiday and big chunks during the summer. He taught me to drive a stick, we hunted and fished together, and he gave me his leather working tools.
I had driven up to see him one weekend while in high school and completely missed the for sale sign in the yard. He had decided to move to Washington. It was prettier there, and not as hot. But I wasn’t there, so that meant we had to go back to every other holiday and large chunks of the summer. After college, visitation dropped off. Neither of us could afford the plane tickets. I’ve gotten to see him 5 times since 2007.
Dad will die alone because he has left every friend and family he has had. I’m it now. He will die penniless because, despite being a financial advisor and real estate agent, he failed to put anything aside (that I know of) for later, trusting to the universe to let him exist in a Walden Pond fantasy of minimalism. And he will die without remembering the people that meant the most to him.
I saw him earlier this year, and he had that same photo of his wife on a window sill in his room. He asked who it was, and I had to break his heart, repeatedly, by telling him she was his wife and she had died in a car wreck 25 years ago. He would grow silent and sad, then ask again who she was.
So, no, I have not discarded him, forgotten him, or left him to die. He did those things. I have done what I think is the best I could do and made sure he is comfortable and well cared for as he wastes away.
That’s what I keep telling myself anyway as I continue my life with him not in it because he is locked away in a studio apartment, staring off while sitting on his couch, unsure who all the people are in the photos around him.
At the time of this writing, it is the day before Thanksgiving in 2024. Cheri called. Dad is over visiting and she wanted to have me talk to him “before you forget about him tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I say while fending off the latest accusative dagger. “Put him on.”
Awake! Put on strength! 