My Dad, that is. He checked out about two years ago. We're coming up upon Thanksgiving holiday, and my Dad won't be there. He has Alzheimers, and there is no "there" there. And I feel guilty about that, but at the same time I feel like I want to enjoy Thanksgiving. And if we were to include him, it would be an ordeal. So I guess that makes me a bad son. Even though my sister concurs. So we are both bad children.
But he's not there. Not in any sense of the word.
His eyes are clear and bright. But he's not there.
And I just can't take it anymore.
Let me tell you about my Dad. I love him. And it is a great loss to have lost him. And lost him we have. He is totally gone.
The laughter. He had the most robust and genuine laugh you would ever want to hear. The sense of humour...he had the best...and now nothing makes him laugh. The sharp wit...he taught me everything I know about a quick repost. The life of the party. That hasn't been the case for at least 10 years.
He is a shell. And it breaks my heart. And he won't be spending Thanksgiving with our family. Not this year. He wouldn't know where he was if he did, and it would be like a lead anchor upon the day. And if that makes me a bad son, I own up to it. Yet I know that it is as it must be.
We just can't deal with it any longer. Not on a holiday. On any other given day? Yeah...but even that is hard. And I don't need you to make me feel any guiltier than I already do...believe me...guilt comes with the territory.
Old age is not for wusses, and Alzheimers is not for anyone. I am worn out. So is my sister. We have given as much as we can...and yet the saga continues.
Not that you care, but if you wish to continue, allow me to tell you about my Dad.
I love him. Who I am is so inextricable from who he was that we are almost of one cloth. But not quite.
My Dad was born in 1927. Just in time to enter Kindergarten as The Great Depression descended upon America. He was also born in the country. On a farm, albeit a small one. And not too prosperous one. He did what any number of young men his age did, in similar circumstances...he joined the military in order to escape his enormously circumscribed opportunities. He left rural Southern Ohio (AKA Appalachia) and landed in San Diego, California...a member of the Navy (submarine crew...it paid more).
He vowed to return someday. He made a promise to himself that, after his service, he would leave Ohio and return to California, where a man could make a stake for himself in spite of his family, his roots, his beginnings. Where your past could be washed away and a new life could be pursued, in anonimity, without anyone knowing how humble your beginnings were. California, in 1946, was like a clean slate. As Tom Petty sang...it was into the great wide open.
It took my Dad 14 years to make it back to California, but he did. He left with his closest friend, in 1962, leaving my Mother, Sister and I behind. He sent for us a few months later, after he found a full time job and new his plan would work. We left Ohio on the train, and I can remember every mile of that trek. I remember arriving into Los Angeles, and seeing Palm Trees for the first time. Remember the first time I saw the ocean. Remember the cheap apartments we first lived in, with colorful malibu lights illuminating nonexistent landscaping. I remember how foreign it all seemed to the Ohio we had recently left.
My Dad threw himself into the career he chose...sales. He was determined to be "a success". And he was. At least in the terms he set forth for himself. He left Southern Appalachia and landed in the Golden State. He left his poor family, in a small town, where everyone knew you came from a poor family, and landed in California, where nobody knows anyone, and everyone was equal. He loved the anonimity and the opportunity it afforded him to recreate himself. Only he really didn't recreate himself...he just escaped his past and his roots and the small town box that those things have a tendency to put you in.
But that was really all he asked for.
Years later, when I was already in college...I was the first ( well, second, as I have an older sister ), I became curious about our family history. After we moved to California, the only family we had was in Ohio. And nobody seemed to know where the family was from going back from our grandparents. And nobody cared. On that score both my Dad and my Mom agreed. They both came from hard scrabble roots, and both had no inclination to explore those roots. Their whole lives had been devoted to escaping them.
My Dad's father, my grandfather, ran away from home at the age of 15. He left rural North Carolina and hopped a train which took him to West Virginia, where the coal mines were operating 24/7. That was in 1913. He worked in the coal mines as a teen for some 5 years or more...I never really got him to tell me the whole scoop. But he lived and worked in a company coal town, and dug coal everyday, and got paid in company script. He lived through the great coal union wars. He saw a lot. This would have been close to Harlan County, Kentucky. He never really shared his memories of those times with me.
My Grandmother? She was born in Pike County, Kentucky. Another Eastern KY coal county. Never graduated from high school. I'm not even sure how far she made it through elementary school. I own a faded foto of her as a child, barefoot, with her brother and sister, taken in Pike County as their father was about to butcher a hog. It is hanging from its heels upon some sort of truss or tripod.
She probably never made it past elementary school. They were country.
My Dad grew up with that, in a small town, and knew that it inhibited him.
I never grew up with that. I only grew up with grandparents I loved. And was curious about.
My Dad was a bigot. There's no getting around that. And so were his parents. Though I've never quite figured out why. I have done my genealogy, and done it fairly well. They came to Kentucky from North Carolina...but there really aren't that many Blacks in Eastern Kentucky. Or, for that matter, Southeastern Ohio where I am from. So I've never quite figured out where their perceptions come from. But perceptions my Dad had.
But I digress....this diary is about a man that raised me. Who formed me. Who taught me that coffee should be drunk black without sugar. That steak should be medium rare, and on the rare side of that. That only rubes eat a steak well done. That Bourbon should NEVER, NEVER, be cut with anything sweet like 7-up or coke. I could tell you who drinks their bourbon that way...but I'd get HR'D. If anything, you cut your bourbon with a splash of club soda. Best yet, let a good sized ice cube melt in it.
It's about a man whose laughter defines my life. His laugh was so genuine. And so loud. And now? There is no laughter. There is no HIM.
And there hasn't been for about 2-1/2 years now. That's a long time. He's gone.
My Dad is gone. And there aint nuthin gonna bring him back. He's just gone. He doesn't recognize me. And you know what? I don't recognize him either. He looks the same. But it's not him. Hasn't been for awhile now.
Never will be again. I used to think we would be such good friends...such close family...such inseparable cohorts growing up.
To watch him fade away...drift away, really, like a seaman who fell overboard and slowly drifted away from the ship with the current, as you watch and can't do anything to prevent it...it has been the saddest experience of my life.
My Dad was always there for me. I don't know how to relate to him these days.
His eyes are clear and bright...but he's not there.