Lessons from Dad

Today I went with my Mom and Dad to my Dad's doctor's appointment for a chronic cough he's had for about two years now. They've pretty much ruled out any kind of cancer, emphysema, COPD, asthma or other scary things, but he's still coughing, so much so that he can't lay on his left side anymore at night and he can't exercise outside. My parents are getting older, and my father has a tendency to get a little confused sometimes in situations like this. My mother, therefore, has to spend most of her energy trying to explain to my father what the doctor is saying, and doesn't get a chance to think about it herself. So I went as translator, question-asker and general observer.

My parents, especially my Dad, are growing old. Today the doctor set out three options for further testing. My father could have a) a laryngoscopy in the pulmonary clinic, which would not be as detailed as one that the otolaryngology people could provide but would rule out anything obvious; b) he could make an appointment to go to the oto people to get the detailed laryngoscopy; or c) he could make an appointment to come back and have a bronchoscopy, which would show any obstructions in the larynx area as well as in the lungs.

Dad could not understand this concept. He got very confused about where he'd have to go for what and when it would happen. Mom and I had to explain it to him about four times. This kind of situation with my Dad has become more and more common, especially over the past three years or so, and it just hurts me to see it.

I'm not ashamed to say I'm a bit of a Daddy's girl, and for all of my childhood and most of my adult life I believed that my father could do anything--and usually, he could. He could build a house, and did indeed build my childhood home, the one my parents still live in. A star athlete in high school, Dad could race me across the backyard (and win, although he usually ceded to me). He built me a ballet studio in the basement, complete with a barre and mirrors, and a bar to practice gymnastics on in the backyard. When our half-witted dog chewed up the heel of my brand new clogs in sixth grade, my Dad took them down to the basement workshop and returned them, having filled in the hole, patched up the leather and stained the whole thing so that you'd hardly notice. When a school project was at hand, he would jump right in, helping me (or rather, making me) a model of a cell from a styrofoam ball and automotive putty, or making my niece an alligator "float" to pull down the hall, complete with a mouth that opened and shut as you pulled it. He took (and still takes) an active part in my Halloween costumes, and has made most of the furniture that's now in my house.

My father has fixed countless cars, made cabinets, cedar chests, tables, cases, picture frames, and detailed, accurate, working recreations of a spinning wheel and an artillery carriage for a Civil War era cannon. He's even made his own gun. He could talk intelligently about almost any topic that might come up and quite a few that never would. I say these things in the past tense, but most of them are still true. It's just that I see his abilities slowly eroding with time.

I can't even describe in words what it was like to grow up knowing that you could count on someone who would--and COULD--do almost anything for you. Spoiled? Yes, but somehow my parents taught me not to take advantage, not to take it for granted, to be honestly grateful. Probably because that's how they were to each other and to us as children when we did something for them. It's a security I've had the privilege to feel for most of my 34 years. Now, it is shifting. I know my father would still do anything for me, but sometimes now he just can't.

My father never went to college, but he never stopped learning--and still hasn't. I think now he is in the process of learning how to be "old," how to adapt to his body that won't do what he wants it to all the time anymore, that tires out too easily and makes him take naps, and keeps him up coughing at night for no apparent reason. How to maintain his independence when he sometimes can't understand people, either because of his poor hearing or because of the confusion that the diabetes brings.

And I'm in the process of learning, too, of how to be there for the person who has always been there for me. I am learning how to support my father without taking away his dignity. Sometimes, like today, it means going to the doctor and being patient when explaining something to him. Other times, it means laughing at a joke that he hasn't articulated quite right, pretending like it wasn't that big of a deal that he almost ran that red light, or helping him as unobviously as possible with physical tasks that might be challenging for him now. I'm not always perfect, and sometimes I step over the line and know that I have stepped on his feelings, but I am trying. I am trying to become the daughter of a 69-year-old man, and not just a daughter, but a good daughter.

I watch my father playing and bonding with my son and I wonder how many of these years we have left, and what it will be like when I remember these as "the good years." Sometimes I feel an urgency to spend as much time as possible with him, to soak in his laughter and his voice and the feeling of his big, rough hands that still dwarf mine, still make me feel like a little girl, still make me feel like everything's going to be okay. But I don't do it. I don't get out the videocamera and interview him about his life. I don't set up that lunch date with just him so we can talk. I don't arrange for us to take a walk in the woods or visit a museum together, just him and me. I know I don't do these things because it's admitting that he's slipping away, no matter how slowly; it's admitting that 'we have to make the most of the time we have left.'

But I also know that by not doing them, I'm robbing myself of something I'll never be able to get back. I'm going to work on it. But in the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy that laugh whenever I hear it, hold his hand when I get the chance, rub his broad-but-a-little-bit-slumpy-now shoulders like I did today at the doctor's office...and just be conscious of the fact that my father is here now, and I love him.