The memoir of a bipolar artist who decides while in a hypomanic state to bring her 93-year-old father and 92-year-old ex-mother-in-law to live near her and become their primary caregiver.
Excerpt:
I called my Dad one day in April of 2000 to ask him how he was doing, and he answered, “Fair.” He didn’t say “good” much any more, unless Jackie or the floozy was with him. The floozy was a thirty-something drug addict/hooker Dad let live in the spare room of his house in Melbourne, Florida. Jackie was a dependable woman in her fifties we paid to help out a couple hours a day. The floozy drove Jackie nuts. “I’m not buying your father any more beer,” she would say, “so that floozy can drink it. And I’m not cleaning her room, either.”
Dad was 92 with a failing short term memory, but he loved his independence and his daily routine in Melbourne. He’d have breakfast at his kitchen table looking out through the sliding glass doors at the birds and squirrels eating out of his back-yard bird feeder. Then he’d take the six-block hike to his low-brow bar to hang out drinking beer, getting into the occasional game of pool or darts. That’s where he met the floozy.
Dad would hike back home from the bar in the hottest part of the day, and he’d be ready for a nap after that. A little solitaire, watching thunderstorms from the safety of his screened-in front porch, sitting in the back yard on cooler days – these were Dad’s routines. Then, when he felt a thirst for beer or society, he’d head back to the bar where everyone greeted him as “Mr. Bill” and made a place for him to sit.
Dad had been living alone for three years since Mom died, and we six children were worried about him. But when we asked, he always said he was happy with his life and that he didn’t want to live anywhere else, so we meddled as little as possible. Hiring Jackie to take care of the house and feed him at least one good meal a day was about all we’d managed to accomplish.
The night before I called Dad I’d had a nightmare in which he was hit by a car and died. I was yelling over and over that I should have visited him more.
Adrian and I had just moved to Ithaca, a college town in the finger lakes region of up-state New York. For the five previous years we lived in the little town of Morehead, population 8,000, in eastern Kentucky. I taught creative writing in a tenure-track job at the State University while Adrian enjoyed taking free classes, playing tennis with his Physics professor and meeting up with a friend at the Fuzzy Duck coffee shop for games of chess. It was the kind of town where you always ran into people you knew at the supermarket and video store. Life was cozy and I even got tenure, which most people would take as a signal to stay put. I took it as the siren call to move on. Five years was the longest I’d been at one job in my life.
When things stayed the same I got bored, and then I got down. A new job, a new town, a new house – these offered promise and a challenge – something to pump my adrenalin, push me into high gear. I always gave the new project my all, and the manic energy generated allowed me to accomplish amazing things.
It was staying power I lacked, and that’s why I never stuck with the one thing I wanted to do most of all – art. As far back as I can remember I loved to touch and play with paper, chalk, paint, glue, ink – whatever I could get my hands on to make marks, build shapes, create color, line and form.
I never abandoned my art completely, but I never gave it center stage for very long, either. There were always excuses like “I need to make a living” which made me put the art in second place, part-time, when I could get around to it. That was OK because I always knew that one day I’d be doing it full-time and that day would come soon.
Before I knew it I had spent considerable time at six different universities, had half-a-dozen careers under my belt and was 54 years old with a new PhD in creative writing. The gig at Morehead State was perfect for the first two years and I had time to paint as well.
Painting was easy then and fun. It was my escape from the drudgery of reading student manuscripts, preparing for classes, attending endless academic meetings. I put the best of me into my art.
After the third year at Morehead, I got itchy to get out, as I always did. You can’t just say you want to quit your job and move on without a good reason, though, so I’ve always come up with one each time. Usually it was a combination of finding fault with the place we were in plus a benefit on the horizon. “No one wants to be our friend and the university administration sucks.” The benefit this time was a calculation that we could afford to retire so I’d be able to paint full time. Adrian was fifteen years older than I was and had been retired since I’d met him practically, but I had been working on and off to hold up my end.
It took us two more years to finally get out of Morehead. We chose to come to Ithaca because it was near my daughter Blixy and her family, and we thought we could afford to live there. We made a minor miscalculation in that. Even though both houses were the same price, the one in Kentucky was 4 years old when we bought it. The one in Ithaca was 17 years old – just about ready for some major repairs. In addition, Kentucky taxes and utilities were low, New York state just the opposite.
#
A few days later I called Dad again and this time he sounded better. He said he was doing fine and he even remembered that I had told him about our move.
It was raining the day we moved to Ithaca and it continued to rain day after day after day. We spent our time unpacking, buying stuff for the house, getting my studio and office set up. The house had a two-bedroom apartment on the lower level which would be my art studio. The ceilings were kind of low, but there were lots of windows and a separate entry-way. We were having extra lights put up and a ventilation system installed to suck up the fumes from the acrylic paint. The largest bedroom in the apartment would be my office. The kitchen cabinets would hold paint and other supplies. It wasn’t my ideal of the perfect art studio, but it would work.
The unfinished section of the basement was a disaster – dark and damp with a sump pump in one corner and a single bare bulb for light. We hired a contractor to put up fluorescent lights, install a drop ceiling and paint the walls white. That’s the only way I could even consider setting foot in it. Adrian picked up some indoor-outdoor carpeting for the floor, and that space would be good for building canvasses.
#
My sister Laura called and told me Dad had had a couple of bad days. She said he was worried about his foot, but that Jackie was taking care of him. Dad had been sitting in the back yard with bare feet one day and was attacked by red ants. He didn’t feel the stings soon enough to stop them from biting him, and then when he ignored the wound, it became infected.
I spent a whole morning trying to get my computer modem connection working, unsuccessfully. Then Blixy called and asked me to come to lunch and shopping with her. I bought children’s car seats, a booster seat, potty chair, and other stuff for the kids. Back at the house I made supper for them. While we colored Easter eggs with four-year-old Michael, one-year-old Rachel was constantly into trouble, getting at everything that wasn’t locked down.
As they left, Adrian said, “Your life will never be the same again.”
That was OK with me. I had never been fond of children and would have aborted Blixy if it was legal back then. I struggled mightily as a working, single mother for most of Blixy’s childhood, and was too distracted to fully enjoy her. When she gave birth to Michael, I was amazed at how quickly I became attached to him. Now I can “just sit” with a child in my arms and be content. And of course, I get to give them back to their Mom at the end of the day.
#
I spent a whole day working on the computer and still couldn’t get it to work. When I complained to Adrian that I was depressed because of the computer and a spider in the basement that kept me from opening a box of paintings, he said, “You got what you wanted.”
“Are you going to memorize that line and bring it up to me each time I complain about something?”
“Yes.”
A couple days later the sun finally came out. I went to Staples and bought Windows 98 and installed it, and the computer worked fine.
Before Rachel’s next visit, I went through the house collecting all the fancy vases and knick-knacks and putting them away on the highest shelves. I cleared out the bottom shelves of a bookcase to put the toys Blixy had brought over from her house. I wanted the kids to feel welcome and comfortable, and the house to be safe from Rachel’s onslaught.
One day we almost bought a refrigerator at Sears when the salesman said my 10% discount coupon didn’t apply because it was already on sale. That’s after he originally told us it would apply. Even worse was our experience in the stereo department. The “new at his job” salesman first tried to sell us a set for $299. “We must look like we can’t afford a good one,” I said to Adrian. Then the guy showed us one for $499, but it had five speakers that we were supposed to place around the room at ear height. I asked about floor speakers, but instead of showing us some, he just argued with us. We didn’t buy a refrigerator or a stereo that day.
Another day I waited all morning for a contractor to show up.
April 27 was Dad’s birthday and I felt guilty that I wasn’t with him. Luckily one of my nephews was going to be in the area on business and would take Dad out to dinner. Adrian complained about the local gym he had just joined. He compared it to the wellness center in Morehead where everyone smiled or said hello when they saw you. “Here people act as if they don’t see each other,” he said. Adrian missed Morehead much more than I did because he had a life there. He went places and saw people and did things. I am more of a hermit so it’s irrelevant where I live.
I picked up Rachel and Mike at daycare for the first time. Mike was glad to see me, but Rachel acted like I was kidnapping her. She screamed when I picked her up and didn’t stop for the whole twenty-minute ride home. Then when we got there she screamed some more. I finally stuck her in her booster seat at the table and gave her some juice and food. After she calmed down, she played with Mike and me in the living room.
At the beginning of May we went to an art opening downtown, a solo show of large colorful abstract paintings by a local artist. I felt a strong connection because my own work is large, colorful, and abstract. It also felt great just to get out of the house and do something.
We came home pooped, ate tacos and watched Out of Africa. The strongest impression I was left with from the movie was that Masai sense of living in the moment. A state I aspire to but have little experience with.
#
Laura and I finalized our plans to meet in Melbourne for Father’s Day. Laura and I were very close, but had not been when we were young. I had much more in common with my sister Mary who was into art and poetry and anti-establishment behavior, like me. We were the social misfits. Laura, on the other hand, always looked good, dressed well, and had money in her pocket.
I got a lot closer to Laura after she split with her first husband, Victor, who used to call our family “The Taetzsch-billies.” Laura and I lived in the same apartment complex in New Jersey for a couple of years in the 70s. I was a single parent and Laura was like a second mother to Blixy. So it would be great to spend a sisters’ weekend in Melbourne and see Dad at the same time.
Dad wasn’t the only old person I was worried about. My ex-mother-in-law, Elsie, was 91 and living on her own in Livingston, New Jersey. Her son John and I were beatniks when we got married in 1964. “You two just might make it,” Elsie said at the time, but the prognosis was not good. John spent the first year of our marriage on heroin, then kicked it just before we took off with his Norton motorcycle and my bountiful optimism for California.
I found an office job in LA in two weeks, but John never did for the four years we lived there. When I got pregnant, I was afraid to go to Mexico for an abortion. Blixy was the best thing that happened to me, though. She was a naturally happy baby, which was a good thing, because I was always stressed out and depressed, and didn’t have the energy to take care of a difficult child. I took her with me when I left John nine months’ later.
I arrived at Newark airport with my baby in my arms and one suitcase. Dad and Laura picked me up, but they were so excited about Blixy they forgot to put the suitcase in the car. John and I exchanged some letters for a while, but two months after a drug bust, he took off to Canada with an Englishwoman and her baby girl.
John’s mother Elsie took my side. Throughout the years she was always there for Blixy and for me. Elsie got to see John again in Canada years later after he fathered three more children, but then he split with their mother and moved to Alaska. No one had heard from him in years.
Elsie’s other son Chuck lived fifteen minutes away from her, but he married a shrew who hated Elsie. That meant Chuck’s three children were not very attentive to Elsie either because if they were, they’d catch hell from their mother. That made Elsie’s life sad and hard, and made it even more important for Blixy and me to watch out for her.
Elsie had been in the hospital with pneumonia and was recuperating at home when I called her. In her 90s she still changed her own storm windows each season, chauffeured friends who couldn’t drive, and visited shut-ins regularly. But she wouldn’t be able to do any of that until she got stronger.
#
On a Saturday morning Blixy dropped the kids off at our house early and went to work. Rachel had a bad ten minutes right after her mother left, and then she was fine. Later we all went to Stewart Park on the edge of Cayuga Lake. Adrian and I watched the kids on the playground and then we had a picnic lunch by the lake. It was all quite idyllic with ducks and geese, sailboats and sun.
In the afternoon there was a Zen moment when I was sitting on the couch with Michael’s head in my lap, watching Rachel play. I don’t remember ever being in that state when I was raising Blixy.
#
I got my first haircut in Ithaca at J.C. Penney’s. I hate finding a new person to cut my hair, and it’s rare that I find one I’m comfortable with. I was appalled when I looked in the mirror later and saw an actual gap had been cut in one spot.
Everything seemed to be going wrong all the time and taking two or three times as long to accomplish as it should have. I looked for a message in the mess and thought it might have been about patience until I peed on my shirt-tail one morning. Then I thought it might be about something else, about setting priorities. I had been flailing away without purpose, hitting away furiously at everything that came in my path.
#
Blixy said that for Mother’s Day she thought we should have a picnic in the park, but that sounded like so much work. That Saturday she asked me to pick up the kids so she could mow her lawn. It wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my day, but I decided not to be rigid and agreed. When I got there, Mike said he wanted to spend the day with his dad, so I just got Rachel. Then Blixy told me Rachel had had a 103 degree fever the night before.
“We’re giving you the sick kid and keeping the healthy one,” said Gene. But Rachel was easy that day, for a change. She slept most of the time.
That night I called Dad. He had some woman there he said he was trying to talk into “spending the night.” Was it Jackie? He seemed a little confused or drunk and kept forgetting who I was or that he had already told me about the woman. Then at the end he said, “I love you.”
Sunday morning I told Blixy I wanted to watch the women’s tennis final on TV instead of doing something for Mother’s Day. Then I didn’t enjoy it very much, feeling guilty for not going to the park with her.
Adrian spent the day on a group mountain bike ride. He said it was pretty rough, but the guy who led it was very nice and gave him a ride home afterwards. It was hard to tell from the information he gave me whether or not he had a good time.
#
I called Elsie and she said she was driving again, even to the supermarket, but that she couldn’t stay long because she got tired. She also complained about her mental abilities. She was having trouble subtracting numbers. That didn’t sound so bad to me. I was having trouble adding them.
#
On June 14, Laura and I met at Orlando Airport and drove to Melbourne. I loved the first shock of that thick humid air that greets you in Southern Florida. We drove with the windows open, catching each other up on everything in our lives.
Dad looked good. His ankle was just about healed. He bruised so easily and didn’t realize it. Nerve endings dead, I guess.
We took Dad out for ribs and beer at his favorite restaurant, Fat Boys. He was thrilled to have two of his daughters with him. He loved showing us off and had to tell the waitress about us. We’d have to go through that at his bar one day, too. This was a ritual I hated, but as long as we played pool it wasn’t so bad. Dad was still great at pool and shuffleboard.
The next morning I dropped Dad off at the bar after we played an hour’s worth of gin rummy. When I got back Laura was up, doing exercises in the living room. I made a cup of coffee and sat in the kitchen looking out at the bird bath and feeder in the scrubby back yard. Dad’s outdoor thermometer showed it was ninety degrees in the shade.
On our last night in Melbourne I didn’t sleep at all. I had anxiety attacks throughout the night. When Laura got up she said she woke up at 4 a.m. and didn’t sleep after that. “I think we’re worried about Dad,” she said.
Laura suggested we gather up the Floozy’s belongings. The woman didn’t seem to be around, but her stuff was in the spare bedroom. That room had the bath with the walk-in shower, and Laura thought Dad might have been avoiding taking a shower because he thought someone else was using that room.
Laura was always thinking about all the things that might make life better for Dad. She thought we were worried and anxious over him now that we were leaving. Maybe, but I thought my anxieties were less altruistic – more about driving from the Syracuse airport to Ithaca, going to our neighbors for dinner, or hanging the art show I was going to have the following month.
We did worry about Dad. We worried about him walking to the bar in the heat, especially after he’d had a few beers. The year before he still had his car, but then we worried about him having an accident. Fortunately one day he “lost” the car and everyone conspired to keep it lost so that he wouldn’t drive it any more.
Laura and I packed up the Floozy’s belongings, and Laura brought them to a neighbor across the street where she was supposedly living with her brother. Evidently the woman was trying to “go straight” and there were no hard feelings about returning her things.
I played gin rummy with Dad while Laura washed the towels and bedding and straightened our rooms out. We would have to leave in an hour.
Mom’s presence was still in the house. Maybe she was watching out for Dad.
Copyright © 2008 Lynne Taetzsch. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Post a Comment