A few weeks ago Dad moved from his assisted living apartment, one building over to skilled nursing care. Had two good years in the apartment, after 38 years in the house the last two of us grew up in.
Cherished, familiar items went ahead, and he’s doing well.
Then we had to clear the apartment, quick. So next weekend Jane and I were there, redux of the house 20 months earlier. Just hours to sort, toss, arrange, don’t be flattened by the emotions. Dad in nursing care. Mum, the house, so much: gone.
For over a year after the house sold I had dreams, nightmares, about being there again. Coming on rooms yet to be sorted, opening cabinets full of treasured objects and having to decide on the spot–usually was under duress in the dream–what to keep, what to give. Impossible decisions. I wondered if I would ever cease to be tormented. Finally, a few months ago, the dreams subsided.
Nothing prepares you for clearing up your parents’ stuff, some you’d rather not know. And for becoming their parent. The youngest of four, I never expected any role of decider, of being in charge. And of having to steel myself and say, no it goes, can’t keep. Have to let it go.
Clearing the house, like archaeologists finding traces of a lost culture, we’d found photos of the family before we were born. Dad playing on the floor with Donald and Eileen, all in tartan robes, Christmas, the perfect picture of a late 50’s happy family.
I never knew that family. But a rare early memory of safety and love–running out of bed late at night to find Dad working in the living room, jumping in his lap, being his little girl. He was in the Pentagon by then, I was maybe three, before his posting to Viet Nam, maybe before my congenital defect was diagnosed. When he returned after a year in Saigon, tall handsome in his uniform, I did not remember him and hid behind Mum. I was pretty sick by then.
A farmboy from Georgia, at age 11 he lost his father, Clarence, a dairy farmer. There they were, a widow with two girls sandwiching one boy, and a dairy farm in 1936. Dad made it out top of his class, made it to the Naval Academy. To Halifax where he met Mum. Handsome couple. But something went awry. Complicated people.
Not an easy relationship for me with Dad. My brother, the eldest, had it worse, I guess; he was estranged for decades, til Mum was dying. I credit my steering clear of marriage to what I saw in my parents’. But I never severed. He’s my father. Compassion, hope for grace.
In the apartment, Jane went for an aide. Alone, I turned to the clothes to be given away, and there in a neat line amid the chaos were his dress shoes. High-polished black oxfords, loafers, and a beautiful pair of tan Longwings he used to wear with a lovely summer-weight khaki suit. He’d always had such good taste.
And there it hit me. He would not wear these shoes again, or that suit. Ever. And that was it. I broke down completely. For a few minutes. And then I put the shoes in the bag with the clothes for Goodwill and kept going.