Snow Much Fun

All of this snow has really weighed heavy on me. Get it? Heavy snow?! No? Rough crowd

My dad was always the one who took care of the snow removal. The last few years we have been pretty lucky to escape giant snowstorms and when it did snow, our fabulous neighbor would take care of it for us, as we were inside tending to Dad.

Last weekend’s heavy hit saw hours of snow removal: snow blowing, shoveling, kicking it, building snowmen in it. And then repeat. Over and over again. It only served to make me miss Dad more. My own driveway at my house is pretty easy to keep clean, but theirs is fairly massive. He always just threw on the Carhartt and headed out, snow blowing for hours without ever complaining.

After about three hours of snow blowing I realized why he didn’t complain – his giant mustache probably froze his mouth shut. That stuff gets stuck to your hair like you wouldn’t believe. Every wisp of hair that came out from under my hat was like a giant icicle when I finally made my way in.

My mom has been feeling the void of Dad, too. We were talking about it over a cup of tea on Sunday evening, after we climbed Mt. Everest. Okay, it wasn’t that serious, but it felt that triumphant when there wasn’t any snow to be seen on the driveway (finally).

As we had finished wrapping up our driveway, we noticed another neighbor outside trying to shovel his. My sister and I grabbed shovels and mom pushed the snow blower over to his house. We ignored his pleas of “No, don’t. It’s okay. I got it.” We started to remove all the snow we could. It felt good. I would like to take this time to point out, yet again, how inspiring my parents always are. They always encouraged us to do things for others – but did so by leading  the way.

We had almost finished when I decided to go check on our back deck, which hadn’t been done all afternoon. My mom headed to the neighbor’s house, the one who had been taking care of our driveway for years now and started to snow blow. 

He came out, my mom said, and asked her what she was doing. She told him he had always done so much for us lately that she wanted to return the favor. When she stopped, they discussed how she had been missing Dad. Before Dad’s cancer and even until the last two years, Dad would always go over and snow blow their driveway for them. After he was unable to do the snow himself, the neighbor bought a huge snow blower. And he’s been helping us out ever since. Mom thanked him again. And then this happened:

Mom: I really miss Jimmy.

Neighbor: Know what I miss?

Mom: No?

Neighbor: I miss how he’d come over and snow blow for me and when I’d come outside to tell him he didn’t have to do that, he would just wave at me. And then he’d said: There’s your blowjob for the day, neighbor. Remember when he’d call it a blowjob?

Mom: Oh God. No. No I do not. But that sounds like him.

Again, we aren’t always politically correct. But we are funny. And I love that, even though my mom’s embarrassed I shared this story, we keep getting little glimpses of Dad. Today is 2 weeks since his funeral. And we find out more about who he was by those who he has helped or touched in the years.

Hats off to you, Dad. Blowjobs aren’t easy. (Don’t tell Mom I said that. She’s already mortified I told the story, period.)

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Today has been a week since we buried my father. Well we didn’t bury him. We burned him alive. Well, not alive. You know what I mean, right? If not? You’re in the wrong spot, my friend.

I am not a casual hugger. I’m not much for having my personal space or personal life invaded. Couple this with the fact that my father, who was my first best friend ever, no longer being with us and it is a recipe for disaster.

I am sarcastic. I am (what I like to call) witty. I’m not one for sugar-coating. And I don’t have much of a filter. This means that on more than one occasion in the last week or two, I believe I may have uttered things that humans aren’t supposed to say at funerals or even in public.

Let’s start a list, shall we.

• “Well, it’s official. He’s the Grinch that stole Christmas.”
• Them: I’m so sorry. Me: Me too
• "We lost my Dad. Well, we didn’t lose him, I know where he is. Well I hope he’s there. That would be really creepy if he was not at the funeral home.”

My family and my closest friends “get” me. They know that it’s just how I am. They also know it isn’t some weird therapy required coping mechanism.  I, and my tongue, are quick and sharp. And I don’t know if I cared at all, in the last two weeks, about offending others. So they take it with a grain of salt. Or they laugh their asses off. 

As my mother, sister, and I drove home from the hospital, having just said our goodbyes to Dad, the car was blanketed by silence - one filled every so often with an "Oh my God."  I turned the car onto our street and chuckled, muttering about how Dad was the officially the Grinch that stole Christmas, being that he passed away just a few days before the holiday. We all laughed a bit - my mother included. I have always been a Dr. Seuss fan. Dad would have loved the joke. There was no harm nor foul. But when I repeated it in the company of others a few days later? They were so uncomfortable it almost hurt to be around them.

When co-worker one said “I’m sorry” and I said, without missing a beat, “me too,” he looked at me and co-worker two stunned for a moment. Co-worker two, jumping to my defense, said “It’s a coping mechanism.” ….I don’t know if I agree with that. I don’t think it’s to cope. I just think it’s who I am. And who I am is what will get me through most anything. Crap, does that mean it’s a coping mechanism? Dangit. And it's true. For the last few weeks people have been saying "I'm so sorry." And I just think: Yeah, me too. Because: I am.

I stopped by the gas station the Monday after my father died, looking for what newspaper my dad’s obituary would be in that day (we ran it in one paper one day and the other the next) and the guy behind the counter eyeballed me as I shuffled through his paper. I was like “Uh, I’m just looking for the obituaries, sorry.” He went to say something so I quickly spit out “We lost my Dad.” And then I laughed. Because we didn’t LOSE him. I knew where he was. He was pained as he rang up the remaining 8 newspapers they had, for me. “Sorry for your loss.” You’ll be happy to know that I remained human and did not say “I just said we didn’t lose him, I know where he is.” I already felt sorry enough for him that I had said it the first time.

I had a lot of time with Dad before he passed. For two and a half years I spent every extra moment with him. We had slumber parties in the living room, he in his hospital bed and I on the couch or the very comfortable day bed my mom bought and put in the corner of their family room. There were days that my mom and sister both worked and it was just Dad and I at home. So we had time to talk. Dad wasn’t afraid to die. He wasn’t scared of what would come after he passed for him. He worried about us. He wanted to make sure we were okay. And he wanted to ensure that we weren’t going to sink into a big depression. So we talked about death sometimes. We laughed about how many times he cheated it. We giggled about how when Death got his assignment for the day and saw “Jim Carpenter” listed on his “To Do” list he would groan and plod off like a child about to be scolded, knowing that he would not be able to complete the task at hand, yet again. So when Dad passed away? I didn’t see a reason to be sad for Dad. I felt terrible for myself. I felt cheated to not be able to ask him about his day when I got home from work, I mourned the loss of having someone to help me build bookshelves when I bought my first house, I wondered if I ever married what it would feel like to not have a father to walk me down the aisle, I shed some tears knowing he was never going to be a grandfather and how sad it was that a child would be cheated having such a wonderful one. Mainly though, I was suddenly left with a silence that was palpable.

Near the end of Dad’s journey, he had a trach installed when he wasn’t clearing his airway well enough one time while intubated. And while he didn’t have to have oxygen, there was a humidity machine that ran and crikey was it loud. Returning home from the hospital without him that night, the silence was tangible and painful. You could hear everything. I hated that machine, I cursed the noises it made. I complained how loud it was while it ran as we slept. We moved it around the room, we padded under it, we wrapped towels around the sides – anything we could do to muffle it. And that was the thing I felt like I missed most that night we left him in the emergency room’s cold and quiet room. There was no noise. Just our own breathing, our sniffles, our sighs, our “what the hell just happened?” questions we were saying out loud to anyone or anything that was listening.

And then we made jokes. About how many times Dad had been in an intensive care, barely hanging on. The doctors would be baffled, unsure how to treat him next, uncertain what to tell us. But it usually involved calling the pastor and getting what family you could up there. We did this so many times I can’t even count on two hands. So having him come home, better, and ready to tackle the next part of his journey, we did normal things: my mom took a shower, I made a sandwich, my sister was buried in her phone. Death and tragedy – they weren’t even a thought in our head. It wasn’t something we were concerned about. While my mom was in the shower, Dad asleep peacefully in the bed next to mine, my sister and I discussed making a really great present for him and my mother for Christmas the following week. We were looking towards the future, without any hesitation. This means we still think it’s a bit "funny" that in that span of 10 minutes of my mom showering and me eating a bologna sandwich, and my sister cruising through Pinterest at warp speed – our entire world changed.

There were no doctors, there wasn’t a quick call to the pastor, there wasn’t even time for someone to make you fearful that this was the end of a chapter in the book of life. It just happened. He was there, and then he wasn’t. We called 911, we did CPR, we said his name over and over again. And then within an hour’s time? We had watched paramedics work on him in our family room, we had raced an ambulance to the hospital, we waited on pins and needles for a doctor, we received the news that there had been nothing they could do to restart his heart, and we sat in a cold and oddly lit emergency room and said our goodbyes. No fanfare. No fear. No big decisions to be made. I would imagine that’s exactly Dad’s doing. He had just watched his youngest child graduate from college less than a week earlier. He had made his peace years ago. He knew he was home and with the ones he loved. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain I know that it’s the best way to go. But it doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t ache. That I don’t relive the moments I made a bologna sandwich and sat there, next to him, eating it – completely unaware that my entire life would change in a matter of moments.

So, now we pick ourselves up, we brush ourselves off. And we probably never eat a bologna sandwich again. Sell your shares of Oscar Meyer now, people. I’m taking them down.

Usual or Ordinary : Not Strange

Normal is a relative term, as far as I am concerned. Webster’s dictionary defines it as: 

Usual or ordinary: not strange

Mentally and physically healthy

When you become the caretaker or loved one of someone who has a life altering or fatal illness this is the first thing that changes: normal. People don’t tell you that. They just tell you to hang on and live through the ride. But the ride never really ends. It’s like perpetually riding The Superman at Six Flags backwards. You think it’s going to end. But you can’t really tell because you can’t see in front of you. Likewise, you don’t usually have the time to stop and analyze what’s behind you, because the ride is going at warp speed. And you have no clue if it will ever end. You keep thinking of when things return to “normal” what you will do. How your life will be normal again and you can go out with your friends or return to work without fear of having to run out of the door at a moment’s notice.

I’m going to be honest. You won’t have that normal again, probably ever. But there will be new normals. And they will be scary. They will maybe include hospital stays and ventilators. They may end with you sleeping in an intensive care waiting room. They may leave you calling work saying “I’m not sure when I’ll be back in the office.” But you’ll figure it out. And you’ll learn to embrace them. 

For instance: Normal to me used to be stopping by my parents house a few times a week to say hello. Or trying to dodge Dad when he called to tell me he had made me dinner and I already knew I had plans with friends. When Dad’s second brain surgery went a bit less than stellar, my normal became sleeping in the waiting room of The University of Chicago’s NeuroScience Intensive Care waiting room. The room was built like a small closet and didn’t even have a couch. You get inventive.

Normal, until then, had been sleeping alone with my dog under the covers and my cat startling me awake as she flopped down from the closet onto the bed. My new normal was seeing how imaginative I could get with two plastic chairs and a hospital blanket for a pillow. I’m not above telling you I built forts. Or that I sometimes didn’t get up to pee when I needed to because another person from the waiting room might steal my spot next to the electrical outlet and I needed to charge my phone.

The important part is that things don’t have to be normal for you to live or even for you to thrive. I didn’t experience normal in the way that I used to when my timed coffee pot would go off before my alarm and my room would be filled with the smell of coffee by the time I hit snooze the second time. But I experienced it in the way of going to the Au Bon Pain that was located on the main floor of the hospital and having coffee at 6 am with my mother in the waiting room. And those moments are just as precious to me as the extra minutes of sleep used to be.

Again, I had no idea when the ride would stop or what would come next. I just knew I was waiting for normal. I yearned, at the time, for normal. Now I just wish someone would have told me to stop wishing for normal. And realize that nothing is normal. Nothing is the same. Life is like a roller coaster ride, no matter what you’re going through. But going through a life altering illness with a loved one is like riding it backwards. And you can’t distinguish when the ups and downs may stop. You don’t know if the conductor has left his post and if you’ll ever get off. And then that? That becomes your new normal.

You’ll learn to navigate the ups and downs. And when the ride switches directions? You’ll learn to hold on and you’ll make a new normal. Maybe one that even includes forts! (Now, be a dear and don’t let anyone steal my seat…I’m going to go get a coffee.)

No Exception Made

As I pointed out in posts before, our family has always approached everything in life with a little bit (or a lot a bit) of humor. When the cancer hit Dad’s brain, there was no exception made. Everything was fair game. As reference, I submit that he changed my ringtone and I his to the “I’m a tumor, I’m a tumor” song from Family Guy.

Here is just a glimpse into just a few of the twisted moments the first tumor gifted to us:

• Dad: I don’t want to be a slow Joe. You know?
  Me: That rhymes.
  Dad: I’m a poet, and I didn’t know it. Damn, there I go again.
  Me: Too bad it’ll all be over when they remove that brain of yours.
• Dad: Promise me that if they make me stupid you’ll not buy me the same coloring book every year for Christmas. A coloring book is fine. But I know you. *glares* At least mix it up.
  Me: Damnit. I’m going to have to return those 25 My Little Pony books I just bought earlier this week. Now you’ll get nothing for Christmas. …but it’s okay, you won’t even know. What with them scraping part of your brain out.
• Dad: Do you think they use an ice cream scoop when they remove tumors?
  Me: Don’t flatter yourself, man. Your brain isn’t THAT big. They’ll likely use a melon baller. That’s much smaller.

I’m aware that this is neither politically correct nor funny to everyone. But it worked for us. And when the first surgery was over, we were pleasantly surprised to find he was home and sitting in his own chair after less than 36 hours. It was amazing and very welcomed. A little bit of occupational therapy to strengthen up the left hand, a few weeks off work, and everything was back to "normal."

Someday I will have to tell the story about what a great set of parents I have. (Read that how you’d like). Mom convinced Dad, prior to his first brain surgery, that it would be positively hilarious if they could trick me into thinking that something had gone wrong during the procedure. When I walked into his room in the NeuroScience Intensive Care, I asked how he was feeling. And suddenly he broke out into a weird set of disco moves with his hands. (Think Greg Brady dancing with his brothers and sisters and singing back up to little Peter Brady…) They both thought it was side-splitting as I stood there, baffled and wondering if I should, in fact, really pick up some coloring books for his  Christmas present later that year. Spoiler alert: He was fine. Just playing a terrible trick on his child. (And it served to let Mom know he was both alert and fine as well as able to remember information from right before the surgery, since that’s when they devised the terrible, awful, and not at all funny – okay maybe a little funny – plan.)

I can only imagine the fear that runs through your mind when they start to discuss cutting into your brain. My father was always an intelligent, articulate, and creative man. As a human we feel that the essence of what we are is stored in the wrinkles of that amazing (and vital) muscle in your head. Dad was nervous, I know. So we joked. I was terrified that they would take a part of my Dad away during that surgery. So I joked. We laughed a lot. And we enjoyed all the time we had before the surgery. Luckily the first surgery went swimmingly well and there was nothing to fear, as I said.

We had a few years of laughter and terrible jokes between then and the next time the cancer returned to attack his brain. And between that time? We even colored a few times. (What? The man loved his My Little Ponies, don’t judge. And I had to get rid of all 25 copies somehow.)