A Love, A Loss, And Peace XXIX

Patty, Erin and I sat on the living room floor at Erin's house and went through hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures. Erin found picture's of his mother when she was young, pictures he had never seen before of his own family while growing up. Patty and I gave him all of the pictures he wanted including of our grandparents; we never new our grandparents and Erin did so we handed them over knowing they will always mean more to him than us. My father had his father's hand written will in a little pocket in a book, I gave that to Erin too, it will last longer and have a better shot of moving through generations if Erin keeps the keepsakes. I made a separate pile of pictures of dad in his first life, the one with Trina; I know she said to throw everything out and I imagine she would have if I wasn't there but I can't just toss it the trash. She doesn't know that the day I let my father go home for the last time he cried, he openly sobbed in the emergency room asking why she didn't like him anymore. It broke me, it made me angry, it confirmed all of my negative feelings about her...controlling, cold, miserable and down right mean. Listen, she is the one that has to live with how she handled everything around our father and maybe she is completely fine with it, I don't know. Here's what I know, when he asked for assistance to stay in his home after a stroke a few years ago, she got upset. She wanted him to go into a home because she was tired of driving the few miles to take him grocery shopping or to an appointment or to get his haircut. She wanted to wash her hands clean of him without feeling any guilt and that is only possible if the doctors agree that he needs 24 hour care...but then dad did what he does best and he walked back from the cliff and became strong. There was a doctor on my father's medical team that refused to believe that my father, at 61 years old, had to live out the rest of his life in a nursing home. He took him on as a patient and rehabbed him until my father who was curled into a little ball from arthritis could walk out on his own.

After all the work was done it was decided that my father could go home and enough supports could be put into place to help him stay in his home. Trina, who had been working with social services behind the scenes watched her months of work swirl around the toilet bowl when the medical team overruled her. After that day of getting a complete verbal undressing from doctors, Trina and social services slinked out the door...my father barely saw her again. When my father was finally at home he called her and asked for a ride, she refused saying she would no longer be helping him. It didn't stop there though, a few years later my father had to go back into the hospital and when Erin called to notify her she simply said...don't call me about this. That was it, he didn't do what she wanted, something he no longer qualified for, a nursing home, and she left...no discussion, just walked away.

Now, standing in Erin's living room holding a shoe box of her childhood I found it difficult to stay angry, what's the point? In the end I got to hold my father and say good bye when he refused dialysis, she will never have that but she should have these pictures...maybe a trip down memory lane will help her remember all of the goodness and let go of the bad...