"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
Most would attribute that line to the late 90s song by Semisonic - Closing Time. In truth, they borrowed it from the Roman philosopher, Seneca.
Regardless of its provenance, today it plays on a loop in my head and heart, for today mark's another beginning coming on the heels of a heartbreaking end.
As of three minutes ago, Rudy drove away to get started on our new beginning. A new job, a new challenge, a new place - it's all exciting and well earned, and the new place, under his tutelage, will come alive in ways it did not know it could. But echoing every move we have made over the three+ decades of our marriage, I am now alone again. Naturally.
(Forgive my throwing in another lyric.)
The naturally part is important. As much as we detest the being apart part, we know how to do it, we have done it more times than we can count, and anyone who has followed this blog knows that any separation that falls short of ten years and three months is just fine by us.
If you are newer to DGMS, yes, Rudy and I once did a ten year, three month stint apart - it just ended in November of 2017. We did it for our kids, to give them stability they had more than earned by rolling with so many moves up to that point. Was it easy? Oof. NO. Of course not. While some people would love to have their spouse on the other side of the country for prolonged periods, he and I actually enjoy one another's company. Being apart is not something we like. Again, it's just something we know how to do.
But back to our toga togged friend Seneca...
When life landed us in Phoenix at the end of 2019, I took it at face value. Good job here, and happy accident, so were my parents and my sister and brother-in-law. But as the months rolled on, as a pandemic took hold, and as life did what it does best - throws curveballs - I began to look at this beginning through a wholly different lens.
My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I was here. My father began declining from Parkinson's with my mother shouldering his care. And I was here.
I have never felt so sure that the universe/God/love/light - whatever you feel is out there beyond us - had moved the chess piece of my life into position to support the moves needed to be made by them.
This year has been hellish in so many ways. COVID still rampaging, getting cagier with new variants, disrupting lives and plans, taking lives and plans. My sister's diagnosis upended 2021 with surgery, then protracted chemotherapy, and now radiation. Being able to be at her treatments was a privilege. An awful, heartbreaking, tortuous privilege. Even if all I could provide were the bad laughs and to put her soft socks on her feet, at least I was there with her.
As Dad began to decline, it became a race against the clock and his advancing symptoms to prepare their house for sale and to get them accepted and moved into a Continuing Care Retirement Community. Painting, carpet cleaning, patching, cleaning, consolidating, cajoling, tricking, reverse psychology-ing. Months of daily trips to their home which culminated in their house being on the market, their apartment at the CCRC being prepared, and my elbow going all tennis along with a side order of Shoulder a la Elsa.
But I got them moved. I got them settled. As they began to establish their new normal, I was learning to massage my sister's arm to keep lymphedema at bay; to understand the numbers attached to every blood draw she endured; to inject her with medication to keep her numbers where they needed to be. And then just as chemotherapy was winding down...
My father's dementia and Parkinson's were ratcheting up. And as anyone who has trod this road can tell you, when those two decide to hold hands, things can go downhill faster than an Olympic luge event.
It was just over a month ago that his symptoms, his behavior, his demeanor, his everything became more than my mother could handle on her own. We had to move quickly, and thanks to being in a CCRC - the continuing care portion was implemented and we were able to move him into the Memory Care unit. I will never forget that day. It started badly with paramedics called for my Mom - let's be honest, a panic attack on that day was the most natural thing that could have happened. Crisis calmed down, we spent the rest of the morning in their apartment, my Mom and Dad sitting on the couch holding hands and talking quieting about trips they had taken. My sister and I set a record for meaningful looks across the room.
Then it was time. We told him we had a meeting we needed to go to. My father, ever the executive, made sure he had paper and a pen before we left their apartment. I walked behind them with my sister and took a couple pictures. Not to be morbid, but to remember. (Having lost everything in Hurricane Iniki in 1992, Rudy and I made a conscious choice to not take any pictures back then, saying to one another that we didn't "want to remember it that way." We both regret that decision to this day. We have learned over time that even the bad shit has value and should be documented because it will find its place in your memories and heart eventually.)
I had spent that morning at the Memory Care unit preparing the room he would be living in - new sheets, comforter, I placed some pictures, put his robe and slippers in the closet, etc. We wanted him to have some level of familiarity despite us having to move things along so quickly. (We would add additional items over the next week - his recliner, his dresser, his Steelers football, Mary and Jesus statues.)
Leaving him was the worst mix of emotions thinkable. We knew it was what had to be done. Not just for his safety, but for Mom's as well. We knew he was in good hands. We knew we were incredibly lucky to have this option available for him. But we also could not escape the feeling that we were leaving him behind. Disposing of him. Yes, yes, yes, I know that's not what we did, but the heart and the head do their own thinking and feeling and guilt was an ever present emotion that day and in the days that followed.
I also had no way of knowing it was the last time I would receive a hug from him, a word from him, an eye twinkle from him. We all thought we had more time.
That evening, I took more items over, careful to not be seen. Talking to one of the caregivers, he reported that my father had had a good afternoon. He sang along to songs that were played, he enjoyed ice cream and dinner, and when he asked about my Mom, sister, and I, they had simply told him we were having a girls' weekend. He had gone to bed without incident, no trouble. Giving my mother that report was incredibly uplifting that night.
But that was not to last.
His dementia picked up such speed, it is still breathtaking to consider. He stopped eating, developed trouble swallowing, was using a walker and a wheelchair - stunning to us as he had walked into Memory Care under his own steam.
Following their guidance to keep our distance during the first weeks, we took my Mom along for our daughter's wedding. An event that had been rescheduled, repositioned, downsized, etc, so many times, and now she was actually going to be able to attend. As it turned out, she did more than attend. As the pandemic touched my husband and son, they were unable to attend the wedding, so my mother and sister walked my daughter down the aisle.
Returning home, my plane was still taxiing when I texted everyone I had landed and it began to blow up with every variation of "Get here as fast as possible." Here, meaning where my father was. That entire week is a blur. My father was never conscious. His breathing was tortured, labored. We sat vigil with him that week, around the clock, supporting Mom - who never left his side - talking to him, stroking his head, holding his hand, playing music for him.
When the end finally came, at 6:40pm on November 19th, grief and relief (regrief? grilief?) swept the room. Relief that his struggle was over. Grief that this larger than life man would no longer be in our lives making bad jokes, loving us, living for updates on his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
I know I finally cried. Tears that had been pushed down the entire year finally had their way and I collapsed in a heap on the floor on the side of his bed. When they stopped, I sat with him in his room. Everyone else busy making phone calls, speaking with the caregivers and nurses. I just could not leave him alone.
In truth, he was no longer there. In the space of that last breath, I felt the energy in the room change. What was left behind was his vessel, but not him. For him it truly was closing time. His new beginning, wherever that takes place, had begun.
For the next week and a half, we moved through the motions, machinations, logistics, and longing that are the natural fallout of a life lost. Choosing a casket, prayer cards, flowers, options, options, options... so many &*^@# options. Visitation, funeral mass, burial. This past Wednesday, complete with an Air Force Honor Guard, my father was laid to rest in the National Cemetery here in Phoenix.
With the folding of the flag, thanks conveyed by the Honor Guard, words spoken by a deacon, my sister, and I - it was done. Everything had finally ended.
Just in time for the new beginning that has swept my husband away. Because life is just that way. It doesn't stop, nor should it. Valuing the time we have, being grateful for the cognitive abilities we have while we have them, the use of our limbs - never before have I seen with such clarity that each day is a gift, each day has potential, each day deserves to be lived fully, deeply.
I will stay here till the end of January. I want to be here for my Mom as she begins to establish her new normal, as she moves through the inevitable, unpredictable, messy course that is grief. Grief is not linear. And it unfolds differently for every single person.
For me, I am sad, I am missing my father terribly. But I am not where I was on that horrible day when we left him at Memory Care. This morning I found words I typed into a Note on my phone on that day:
Moving through the past month+, even with the trauma of that week, the pain of losing him, hell, the pain of having to put down one of our cats in the midst of it all - I have begun to untangle so much of what I wrote of that day. To make sense of the emotions, to unsnarl the rational thoughts from the irrational guilt.
It will take time, and I suspect I will trip, I will stumble, I will fall, I may fall apart. But that's ok. My father deserves that. My father deserves the time it takes me to make it make sense, for me to fully integrate the beauty of how he was there at my beginning and how lucky I was to be there at his end, and to have his ending be remembered even as I embark on another new beginning myself.
Life brought me to Phoenix for a reason, for many reasons. It was a new beginning then, even if I did not fully understand it at the time. And now, those chapters are ending - storylines being tied up, characters awaiting their next cues, conundrums, most moving on, one staying behind. For those of us still alive, as the song goes, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. And I won't. My father did not raise me to be passive, to stagnate, to waste time. My life is heading south to new faces, new places, new adventures while I can still have them. What lies before me now are blank pages. My hope is that what 2022 writes is kinder, less assholey than what 2021 has scribed.
For us all.
Closing time, every new beginning
Comes from some other beginning's end.
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