My blonde sister’s smile looks joyful in this photo, but my own appears forced. This would have been the year after my Dad’s mom passed away in her 50’s.
Dad appears engrossed in the story, though (like me) he could act the part when needed, in those days.
Last week I saw my Dad in a nursing/rehab facility. After a week in the hospital, he appears forlorn. His 81-year-old wise self understood that, after falling down four steps at home, hurting his shoulder and bumping his head, he cannot go home yet.
But still, he told me, “I miss Cristinita” (my Mom).
“I know, Dad. When you get stronger, and do your exercises, and eat a couple balanced meals a day for a while, you’ll get to come home.”
He nods sadly. He understands. But still, it feels a little like punishment for what he describes as “his mistake.” While sneaking an ice cream bar from the downstairs freezer, he let go of the railing, and toppled downward.
Mom told me he might have been there for a couple of hours. She was cooking. She didn’t hear him get up that morning, or hear him fall, or his call for help. His voice isn’t used much these days. With headphones on almost all the time, small tape-player in hand, he has found ways to escape the noise in his head.
After the 911 call, Mom was indignant when the sheriff’s deputy asked if Dad had black eyes before he fell. “No!” she said. Apparently he fell toward the railing, though his CT scans showed that the bruising didn’t threaten to capsize the brain.
The moon was in Capricorn that night, with the Sun, Mercury, and Pluto. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn. My Chani app told me there would be a “wild card” this week, a radical departure, and a new beginning. Saturn was squaring my Natal Neptune. Confusion. Lethargy.
My sister started giving me updates every 12 hours via text (and intermittent phone calls) after he was hospitalized (Feb 7, 2024). I asked her and Mom if I should drive 220 miles north to see him. No, you’re already planning to travel here in a few days. Wait.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to wait. What if this is the end? I asked my husband what I should do. He just lost his mother in September, and has a strained relationship with his father.
Wait, he assured me. You’ll be there in a few days. Surely your sister and your mom can handle things until then.
But what if it’s the end?
Dad hasn’t been eating much lately. He’s gotten so skinny. Mom, Sis, and I have been trying to think of ways to get him to eat more for months now.
We noticed some strange behavior during the holidays. Rage over small things. Hiding out in the alcove above the basement stairs, even though it’s pretty obvious he’s there. Staying up at all hours of the night, as though his body forgot it needs sleep.
My sister is a nurse practitioner. She spoke to his doctor with his permission during an appointment a year ago about his lack of appetite, and the depressive symptoms. In Mexican culture, depression is often seen as a problem of faith. If you believed in god, you wouldn’t have this problem.
So she skillfully didn’t mention it in those terms, but she described her observations in a way that the doctor would understand the struggle. A past doctor had told him dementia was a possibility.
Last summer, Mom asked Dad:
Do you WANT to die? Do you want to leave me?
He looked started when she asked: No!
But you know that if you don’t eat, eventually you’ll die.
Yes. I guess I do need to eat.
His doctor explained that the medicine would help with his appetite, and could normalize sleep patterns. She didn’t mention the depression by name, taking the cue from my sister on the cultural implications.
Initially the medicine seemed to help. After 2-3 weeks, Dad started eating a bit more, going outside more often, and generally seeming happier.
Since he doesn’t drive anymore, he is quite isolated. Just before the pandemic, when he lost his license due to confusion on the roads, I wondered how he would cope. He’s used to being very independent.
My parents live 12 miles outside the city of Bemidji, in a little house by Three Island Lake, built by my grandfather, just after World War II.
Paul Bunyan Transit, the dial-a-ride service, does not provide emergency medical service, and it’s not run like a taxi. You must wait for all the stops. Irrelevant, as my parents are two miles outside the service area.
In rural areas, there aren’t usually Ubers or taxis. Even if there were services like this, my Dad struggles to respond to regular phones these days. I cannot fathom him operating a smart phone, even in an emergency.
Last year I wondered how many winters Dad could make it out in the country without a car.
My sister had just graduated from her nursing practitioner program and was now “Doctor Wendy” to me. For nearly a decade she lived with or near our parents as she went to school to become an LPN, then an RN, and now a DNP, while working at the local hospital. Then she graduated in 2022.
That’s when Dad’s dwindling capacities started to alarm me.
Ten years ago when Dad and I visited Mexico, there was talk of grandkids. I remember conversations in Spanish, that I only half understood.
Had he missed having grandkids? One of his sisters seemed puzzled.
Neither my sister nor I have children. We weren’t destined for that life. It looked like indentured servitude to us. And our parents claim they didn’t expect grandkids, unless we wanted them.
“No,” he insisted. “My daughters wanted to have careers, not children” as though these were mutually exclusive choices.
Now I sit with no particular job on the horizon, and my business paused. Trying not to spend all of my hard-earned retirement funds before age 50. Trying to find my footing after my latest business attempts sputtered.
With zero desire to re-write my resume yet again.
I would rather ask Dad to tell me stories of the photos I found in his carefully-guarded room at home.
We haven’t had many true conversations in recent years, my dad and me. I checked out from the relationship decades ago when I suspected he was judging my life choices. But it was that mean voice in my head judging my choices, not my dad.
I divorced in 2005, after nearly three years of a wrenching Saturn return. Dad showed up to help me assemble IKEA shelves in my new little townhome. At one point, I nearly cried in gratitude, especially when I sensed Dad’s heart was broken for me.
He wasn’t judging. He just wanted to be there for me.
I’m broken open by this memory, tears streaming down at last.
I haven’t been able to cry since hearing recent news. My non-acceptance gene wouldn’t allow me to process. Now, it all comes forward, and around to what feels lost.
How much he sacrificed of his own dreams, to let me have my own.
How little he’s asked of me over the years, and how much of a stranger I’ve been. How formal our conversations seem lately, like he’s not quite sure who I am, what’s okay to ask.
He doesn’t know, because I haven’t shown him.
Is there time to do this now?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Perhaps this explains my obsessive need to create restorative resources for Saturnian times with my friend Patrick this month. His voice is calming. Those who have been through their own fires are the best guides to help us through.
While longing for my Dad’s presence, I feel bathed in forgiveness suddenly. As though the perceived ruptures in the relationship are being healed, even as I anticipate stumbling through awkward conversations this weekend.
Dad, I have some photos for you. Can you remember what happened here?
Sending you so much love Cristy 🙏💚