The last couple of days with my dad have been aggravating and heart-wrenching. I came home from work yesterday to find that Daddy seemed mad at me but not sure why. He was curt in his answers, didn't want to eat dinner, and was just downright rude to me. He has thought he was in Alabama for the last couple of days and kept asking when we had to leave to "go home." Then when it was time for bed he said that he would "turn out the lights." Well, seeing as how he can't see the light switches I waited with him until he got into bed around 11:00. Feeling that he had something in mind I put a couple of aluminum cans in front of the door as an impromptu alarm. At 11:30 we were awakened by a noise followed by his cries. Ran out and found him on his hands and knees at the front door, apparently having reached down for something on the floor and losing his balance. He refused help at first, until Brandon just reached down and did it. Then he was mad again, and went to his room. He only laid down when he realized that I wasn't going to leave him alone, so I got a blanket and a pillow and settled in on the couch for the night where I could hear better if he got up and began moving around. Sure enough! About thirty minutes later he came out of his room. I got up and went over and asked if he needed something. He said, "Nope" rather curtly and went back to his room. Shortly thereafter it happened again. When I went back to his room with him he looked at his window (we had 40 mph winds whistling around the house last night) and I told him the wind was blowing really hard and was the noise he heard. He said, in the most sarcastic manner, "That's nice." Well, I decided that I had to try to find out what this was all about and asked him if he was mad at me. "Nope." Then, why he was acting this way towards me. "I'm not acting any way towards you." I dove in then and asked him why he had been rude to me since I got home from work. He didn't answer for a moment, then exploded. It was all about CIGARETTES!!!??? How he had been smoking since he was 10 years old. I tried to explain that he was on patch to help him quit and he went into 5 year old mode. Been smoking for 78 years and it hadn't hurt him yet. Well, yes it had - he had a heart attack and stroke related to smoking. His answer? "That's ridiculous - I can go out right now and find ten people who have had heart attacks and strokes and never smoked a day in their life." Then I tried to explain how when we moved him here we had to get rid of most of his clothes because they all had burn holes in them, how his couch and carpet had burn holes, and how everyone was worried that he was going to catch himself on fire. The 5-year old came out again and said, "I haven't done it yet and I've been smoking for 78 years." My response? (I'm not his daughter for nothing...) "And I haven't wrecked my car yet but it doesn't mean I won't go out and do it tomorrow." The 5 year old said, "I'm not the only one that has smoked in that house." Which, by the way, isn't true. So finally I tried to reason with him by using his beloved dogs: "Daddy, do you really want to take the chance of burning your house down and killing your dogs in such a horrible way?" He had no reply to that - wait, am I making headway??? No. He went back to how hard it was to quit smoking after 78 years and that I had no idea what it was like.
These are the hardest days. When there is no getting through to him, no way to reason. To remind oneself that this is not the parent one knew and that the hatefulness is part of the disease. Not knowing if I will come home to a father who will sit and talk to me or hate me for "hiding" his cigarettes, or if we will get decent sleep or hardly any at all.
And then there is my family. Brandon, who doesn't want to sleep with his door closed in case Grandpa needs help and gets up every time Daddy does, even when we tell him he can go back to bed. Shawn, who is my anchor and my oasis. Last night I lay on the couch and wanted nothing more than to be back in our room with his arms around me, but knowing that I needed to be where I was. How many nights will be like that one - where my husband is 20 feet away from me but we are unable to touch? I know that this is the best thing we could have done for Daddy, but I feel so guilty for putting them through this. And it will get much worse and more heartbreaking before it is done.
