My dad is sick. He is 81 and like the Energizer Bunny continues to keep on going thru two heart bypass surgeries, a stent, a hip replacement, various infections, a skin condition with the resulting diabetes from the medication for said condition.
He and I have had a rocky relationship. Yet in the past few years, we both have made a semblance of peace. It is what it is. And it is enough. I guess I finally grew up. Sort of. But it has been an interesting week of noticing myself slip back into the little girl who wants daddy's smile of approval; to be the good daughter. Did I say I was 56? Hmm, I guess I am a slow study.
I have three sisters and a brother and along with my mother, we all have kept thinking "this is the big one, Elizabeth," since 1978 when he had his first heart bypass surgery. Time and again, he sits at the brink, looking worse than death in the hospital, and cheating the odds, coming home and standing up in his kitchen making peanut butter toast. I wasn't kidding about the energizer bunny thing!
So here we go again...he fell a couple of weeks ago and has had to have hip surgery to remove fluid and unfortunately had to have a middle toe removed from the diabetes. Visiting him in the hospital this week has been awful. He just keeps looking from bad to worse. It is a helpless feeling to be with someone in that much pain. And the pain meds just made him more grouchy and full of stories he was sure were accurate about crazy nurses, etc. I don't do well with his grouchiness. I never have. I want to just say "Fine, rot here! I am never coming back!" But of course, I do. The feelings have been all over the place... depending on the moment, and of course, his mood. I have dialogues in my head about being compassionate for someone in pain...
Three years ago, the last time he was scary sick, I got it in my head to buy him a little iPod shuffle. I thought, "What would I want if I was alone for long periods without my family and too doped up to read?" (oh, and, by the way, he has also lost the sight in one eye.) I knew it had to be music. The love of music is one of my favorite things my dad and mom passed on to us kids; that and working hard and having a relationship with God. So I bought the iPod as well as music on iTunes from Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and Anthony Newley; all the music I grew up with and that he loved. He told me one day, I can't remember exactly when, about a song Sinatra had done in the early days that was his favorite. It was called "Mamselle". So naturally that had to be on the Shuffle too. And I found it!
So this week, I went and recharged his Shuffle that had been in some little bag somewhere. Yeah, who is the "little girl" who clicked through the entire shuffle to find "Mamselle" in order to cue it up perfectly to be the first one dad would listen to? Who was she that after a harrowing day doing a billion things, went to the hospital, stopped off in the restroom and freshened her makeup, put lipstick on and brushed up her hair? Could it be that little girl that still wants daddy's smile of approval? Like I said... I am a slow study... We so many times get thrown back into those crazy moments of childhood. Nothing new here I suppose...
I was discouraged to see him in a lousy mood again, but I had a surprise for him. I put on the headphones and watched the smile slide across his face and he began to sing "Mamselle..." Ha! I felt like the best daughter in the world! A miracle worker! Song after song came on and he was singing right along, sometimes I could tell what he was singing and I sang a little with him. "That Nelson Riddle had the best arrangements!" he said just bopping his head back and forth to the music, loving it. Wow. "Music to soothe the savage breast".
But yesterday was a whole different animal. It was late afternoon and Dad was no longer in the hospital but in an extended care center that he will have to be in for a few weeks to rid his body of infection completely. I walked into his room and asked him how he was feeling today, "Isolated!" he barked. Uh-oh... Oscar the Grouch was back. "Do you want to listen to some music, dad?" He said yes so back on went the headphones. But this time it was different. I noticed him singing "I get a kick out of you" and he said as he shook his head "Nobody could do this song better than Fred Astaire! Nobody!" and I noticed his chin starting to quiver. I sat up. The next song came on and he was singing the words "the things we did last summer"... and he cried more... I did not know what to do... do I turn it off?
Then I could hear him singing "My poor heart is sentimental, not made of wood. I got it bad and that ain't good. But when the weekend's over and Monday rolls around, I end up like I start out, crying my heart out. Doesn't love me like I love her, nobody could, I got it bad and that ain't good." By this time, he is barely choking out these heart-wrenching words as he sobs. Then he is shaking his head and saying "I didn't do it right, I didn't do it right." I stood up and took off the headphones and said "Dad, you did, you did." "It wasn't enough...I didn't tell her how I felt" At this point, I am crying too. "Well, you always had a hard time expressing yourself, Dad" "I know, I came from such a hard place, I just couldn't do it.""Did you do the best you could?" " I thought I did..." "Hey, Dad, she stayed around, didn't she?" "It didn't seem like she was really ever there much." All through his tears he said these things and I tried to console him, but he was unconsolable. "I have to tell her! I have to let her listen to this song and then she will know!" he cried. This all felt surrealistic to me. I had never seen this side of him. Though mom had told me this had happened before. He was always so hard, I didn't know what to do. I got him a little calmed down, feigned a bathroom break, walked outside and called mom to come down. She had to, there was no consoling him.
She came in and reassured him. At first he bucked up and wasn't going to say anything! I looked down at his cry-face and said "There is something you want to share with mom, right?" He looked over at her and started to speak and I left them together to talk. When I got back to the room, she was reassuring him of her love and how she knows he loves her and that their whole life has been an adventure soundtracked to the best music in the world and that only he was the guy who "got" the lyrics and she wouldn't have anyone else. He seemed so much better and I kissed him goodnight after putting the shuffle and headphones away in the drawer.
Today when I went to see him he was nearly downright perky. He was ready to do whatever the nurses say so he can get out of there. I asked him if he wanted his music, he said yes and oddly enough, the shuffle didn't work. Hmmm.
Music is cleansing, a mood-altering drug and can take us back to good, bad and ugly times. This mostly grouchy old man taught me that he is as complex and multifaceted as I am. He is still the handsome tan guy who, on warm summer days in the San Fernando Valley while mom and I made a salad and the steaks were on the grill, with the slider wide open, with a beer in one hand and a hose in the other watering the huge backyard, would be dancing silly steps to the Tijuana Brass blaring from the stereo for all the world to hear. And that wasn't bad... in fact that was very very good.
