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junkyardlynx · 5 years

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i feel like oversharing right now

it was always just me and my dad since i was very young. my mom was never in the picture, she passed when i was very young due to narcotic abuse, so he took care of me himself. his family shunned him for the most part and by extension, me.

we moved from the west coast to the midwest and settled down. at this time my father was already struggling with a few medical issues (a drop foot from an incident back in ‘89, a left hand near-permanently stuck in a claw shape due to an infection after a drywalling accident, a thumb that was torn off and re-attached on his right hand, chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis) but he was capable of work. he worked at a die shop. on saturdays i’d end up at his work, napping on a forklift or playing a game on my gameboy.

after that die shop closed, he got a job at a steamer / griddle manufacturer and moved up slowly. he eventually headed the shipping department and got a job that mostly consisted of being at desk and managing other people. since he needed the money, they gave him some extra to come in saturday and take care of a bunch of cleaning and odd jobs around the cubicle farm. i’d end up there, and played a metric fuckton of Diablo II on his computer. sometimes i’d help out, but he never made me. if i did, he’d throw me a few bucks for some cards and we’d go get lunch.

i was happy. he did everything in his power for me. he raised me right, he taught me love and respect, he’s honestly the reason i get people i deliver to saying shit to me like “I just wanna look out for you because you remind me of my son.” he taught me compassion and kindness. also taught me some snark and gave me a love for sci fi. i still fondly remember him telling me i’d probably have the day off from school, so i could hang out in his room with ice cream and watch x-files all night.

of course, happiness doesn’t last in stories like mine. when i was 12, going on 13, my father was involved in an accident at work. he’d been taking care of things at a warehouse and a steamer fell and crushed his hip. it caused part of his hipbone to break off. being the stubborn man he was, he refused to go to the hospital until he couldn’t walk. turns out he was suffering from spinal cord compression and ended up accruing permanent nerve damage.

my 13th birthday was spent with my dad in an understaffed, underfunded nursing home. i brought my ps2 up there so we could watch movies on DVD. a coworker of his picked me up late at night and asked if i wanted to get food. i declined. she took me home and said she’d be staying the night. i told her it was fine and she didn’t have to. i just wanted to be alone. she relented on the terms that if anything happened, i called the police immediately and then her.

my dad was my man. he was my hero. still is, honestly. it just shook me. i’m not trying to brag or anything, but i was a pretty smart kid - blind as a bat by the time i was in third grade so i got sucked into reading and other shit that involved being close up so my idiot eyes could see. i knew things would never be the same. in the last three months i’d seen my father cry out of fear and pray to god. god never answered.

eventually, he came home. he used a walker from that point on. before, due to his drop foot, he always wore a sort of leg-boot-brace that supported his foot and ankle, but he could still play catch and everything with me. ah, he fucking hated that walker. my dad was only 60 when he died, so from the time he was about 48 until he was 60, he used a walker or a wheelchair. the image of my father swearing and burning with embarrassment on the few times he tried to go to the store with me is burned into my mind. it makes me so sad i feel like i want to puke. my dad was a handsome man and had a budding romance with the woman who’d taken me home. it didn’t go anywhere after his accident.

as i turned 14, i ended up driving around town for all of the errands and groceries, only letting dad drive for his doctor’s appointments so they wouldn’t ask questions. i matured relatively quickly, i had facial and chest hair in my freshman year. thankfully i was never pulled over or anything.

my dad and i felt guilt towards each other and it showed. we were overly cautious of each other’s space as i turned 16. for me, i basically blamed my dad’s poor health on my entire existence, reasoning that if i had never been born, he would still be out on the sunny west coast, living life to the fullest, probably happy and in love. for him, he confessed years later that he felt like he’d failed me because i never ended up going out much in high school, always being at home to make sure he was okay. i just wanted him to be okay. comfortable. happy, if possible.

we continued like this until i got out of high school. i had very poor credit when i was 18 due to bills being put in my name and then subsequently being unpaid due to my father losing his disability benefits several times over, and even then, i felt like i couldn’t really devote myself to my studies because his health was always getting worse. he was constantly plagued with MRSA and cellulitis in his legs among other things, leading to weeping sores on his frightfully small-but-swollen legs that never went away. i never ended up going to college.

i got a job, and i’m still at that job. i’ve managed to grandfather myself into a somewhat ridiculous hourly rate while still working delivery, so other prospects are incredibly noncompetitive. i started paying the rent for him and trying to do what i could to help, but we could never get ahead. copays and equipment costs piled up, culminating in him requiring a nurse to come by every week and check on him.

i remember coming home to our apartment one day to find a box of my dad’s medical supplies unceremoniously ripped open and scattered along the stairway outside of the apartment proper. all that was in the box was gauze, medical tape and a bunch of xeroform patches (commonly used to treat burned flesh, but used for my dad’s sores). the upstairs neighbors apparently thought he’d had some drugs delivered right to his door or something. i think that was the most murderous rage i’d ever felt in my life. i did nothing about it, other than stuffing the contents into the box and telling my dad that i’d accidentally ripped it open, laughing it off.

things continued like this until i was 23, with my father sliding further and further down the scale of healthiness. i tried to live my own life. i fell in love. it was good. i had a bout of almost dying of sepsis at this time and even in the hospital, my main concern was my dad. i made sure that nurse showed up once a day to check on him instead of once a week. it took my entire tax return but it gave me peace of mind.

a few months after i got out of the hospital, my father went back in. he’d been passing out for periods of time and his lungs were heavily degraded along with the rest of his body. they shuffled him around to a few nursing homes, but eventually, there was no chance of recovery and they sent him to hospice.

i still remember the call. i was playing destiny and eating dinner alone in my new apartment that i’d been forced to relocate to (it’s where I live now) after they refused to sign the apartment lease over to my name where i was. i was doing good. i didn’t know they were about to give up on my dad.

he called me. went a little like this.

“hey buddy”

“hey pops, how ya doin’?”

“i’m alright, are you playin that one game? still having trouble with that deathmatch stuff?”

“nah, i finished that. what’s up? did you need me to run something down? you want some more peanut butter m&ms? i picked some up at walgreens on the cheap.”

“nah buddy. you don’t have to worry about that anymore. they’re gonna put me in hospice.”

his voice broke; i lost mine. it was a solid minute before i could speak. my fingers kept moving out of sheer rote muscle memory.

“hospice? but i thought you said you were doing okay.”

“i am buddy. i don’t wanna live in pain anymore, and i had a good life. i’m really proud of you, and i love you. i gotta get off the phone now, but you’ll be okay. they’ll call you in the morning to tell you where i’m being moved. i love you so much, spencer.”

that was the last time i ever really got to talk to my dad while he was lucid. we had a few rambling conversations while he was drowning in pain medicine, and i ended up leaving just a few short hours before he passed one morning. i still regret it.

i miss him so fucking much. my girlfriend broke up with me the week my dad died, telling me i was “too sad about it” and that “she couldn’t help me deal with that.” turns out she was cheating.

i lost everything i ever loved two years ago. i nearly died the year before that. i’m not okay, really. i’m still not. i’ve been pulling the broken pieces back together but all i am is a collection of scars and bruises. i can’t find the places that don’t ache anymore.

it was just my dad and i, and i still feel like i ruined his glorious, brilliant, shining life by being born. i know it’s not what he believed at all. it just hurts. it hurts so bad and it’s hurt so, so long.

i wish you guys could have met him.

he was so fucking funny. he said the craziest things and always had a witty reply. he liked to mess with me and others.

he was tender. the face he made when he met Kitty Pryde (my cat that i drove an hour to pick up) was the first real spark of joy i’d seen on his face in years. they were joined at the hip. she basically just settled for me after we left - if she had a choice, it’d always be snoozing on dad’s lap. when i’d leave for work and they’d be asleep on the couch, curled up together, i felt like things were gonna be okay.

he was kind. even to those who treated him poorly, like the doctors that ignored his pain and refused to treat him like a human being.

he taught me how to cook. he’s the reason i’ve been able to function like an actual person since i was young - he believed in self sufficiency but not pointless pride.

he never once berated my interests. my dad grew up in the 60′s and 70′s and his spheres of interests were pretty far from mine until later in his life - man, i got to burn my dad a CD of my favorite music. and he loved it. and made me put all my favorite tracks on his phone. he watched anime stuff on netflix. he wishes he could have played games with me more, but his hands were so bad.

my dad was the best person i’ve ever met. if i turn out half as kind and giving as him then maybe i won’t waste the life he’s given me.

i just. miss him. i had a good dad. he was the only family i really had, but he was all i needed.

and now he’s gone.

and i’m alone, struggling to make ends meet, struggling with my creative outlets, struggling to make sense of everything in the calm waters of absence and loss.

#personal #family #dad #father #long post #life story #disability #death

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