Driving…request denied
He said, “Let’s go for a drive.”
Watching the breeze play with our napkins. I replied, with feigned ignorance, “Sure, where would you like me to take you?"
He knows I know what he means, but it is our game.
Smiling ruefully, he says, “I only need my right hand to drive, anyway.” He knows my answer, quickly retorted in jest, “Request denied!” Laughter covers the grief, the pangs of which stab deep in the places we dare not often go. We know, and we both know that we know.
Inevitable, of course, was this decline and, eventualy death. Surely, death would be swift; a non-fulfillment of his fear of suffering and becoming a "burden". Perhaps out on the trail, alone in the Sierras or atop his beloved Valencia Peak in Montana de Oro; maybe after chopping wood or taking Rascal up the hill for their twice daily expedition, he would, in one breath, fly to Jesus. No debilitating illness, lingering, or dependency. The sudden sadness would be swift guillotine to our hearts, but, later, a peace would settlle, knowing this was what he wanted. Yes, of course, this was how it was supposed to have happened...
In his red power wheelchair, shaded from the bright sun, he gamely grinned at my answer. Peering with rheumy eyes over the rim of his sunglasses, he reached across the Scrabble board, he glancing my way, triumphantly. “Watch this!” he said, plunking the tiles on a triple word score complex.
“You’re killing me!” I screech.
He smiles and thumbs his nose at me.
The fateful call came the evening of July 4, 2008. At home, we were sitting down to tri-tip, grilled to perfection by our son-in-law. On the phone, my mother’s voice was frantic, “I’m at the ER and they think your dad has had a stroke.” Hmmm, laughing and squeezing lime into my drink one instant and the next instant…well...there are...no words. A small stroke, they said: a vertibrobasilar ischemic attack in the right hemisphere. A small area of ischemia it was, with a huge pay-off: the loss of bladder function, the use of his left leg and arm, along with changes in his right brain emotional and judgment faculties.
From a local hospital, he was transported to a rehabilitation facility in Santa Barbara, two hours away. With God as my Solace, my Touchstone, during the next five weeks, I became his advocate, his watch-dog, his company. My parents' new vulnerability cut to my soul as I functioned on automatic pilot at full speed, unable to do anything less. My own family was infinitely supportive and helpful. We were all optimistic…we heard many stories of “complete recoveries”. My dad just knew he could “beat this.”
Months pass in blurs of doctor appointments, skin breakdowns, medications, bowel regimens, urinary infections, poor appetite, pain, anxiety and depression. A shadow of her former self, my mother lovingly attends to my dad around the clock, day in and day out, never wavering in her commitment to: “in sickness and in health.” Much time is spent with them, affording my mother a break, helping with the care giving, keeping my dad occupied with pleasant activities, while feeling greatly blessed to have him still with us.
And so it was, on that sunny, warm day, deep into our game of Scrabble, he gazed, with longing, at his faithful white pick-up truck.
“I don’t know... if I can live...with the thought of never driving again. I don’t need my left side to drive.”
“Request denied!” I laugh back.
We pick up the game where we left off, as if nothing happened, continuing down to the last tile. Hours later, exhausted, on the long drive home, I'm alone with my thoughts. The lonely road is dark and…my steering wheel is wet with tears.
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