I was visiting with my Dad a few days ago when he announced that he has Early Onset Alzheimers and that he’s taking medication but that he feels it will end badly. I knew he had it, he just was finally diagnosed and accepting treatment for it. He had a stroke a year and a half ago and it’s been rough since then. It changed him, he’s working still and is amazed that he can and still does it well but when you’ve been doing something all your life, it’s second nature.
When I was younger my Dad always seemed immortal to me, I know I’m not the only one who thought that way about their Dad. He was my hero for a long time, the big guy that could fix any car, with so many people into cars, I tried to absorb as much knowledge about them as I could, sadly it didn’t stick.
I’ve taken for granted that my family is getting older, I am self involved and caught up in my own little world so much that I forget sometimes that my time here is short, I don’t have a lot to spare and definitely not any to waste.
I hurt inside that he’s so fearful of the outcome that faces him. I see the fear in his eyes, the terror at losing control, forgetting the things that he’s known and having watched my Grandmother’s memory fade until she didn’t even recognize him, I don’t blame him for being so terrified, I’m terrified.
Folks, it’s a real bitter pill for me to swallow, I love my Dad and I love my Mom and everyone in my family even though I’ve been a contentious bitch to them all at some time or for a period of time, I love them and want them to be here forever and no matter what I hope they all know that.
I don’t like seeing my Dad like that, especially since I’m not in a position to help financially if necessary – that freaks me out a lot.
Do you have severe illness in your family? How are you coping? Please discuss.
I’ve only got a few minutes for you because I have to get ready to go to my new job! I’m very excited, I think this is going to be a fun job, with fun people. The various environments I’ve been in throughout my working career have made for some very interesting memories, to include the people I’ve worked with and interacted with. There’s nothing like real life to give you character.
Last night I spoke with my cousin Rebecca, whom I wrote about a little on Sunday, I told her I’d written about her and my uncle and that she should read it when she’s ready. She asked about the job, and last she knew I was working at home and very excited, we saw each other on my birthday. It’s funny how much things can change in such a short amount of time. Between you and me…I’m not sure working at home is for me.
I’m so much more social than I ever realized, I’d find myself craving interaction. I enjoyed being here when my son got home, that was a definite positive. I’ll be getting home later now, but it’s all good. I’m not upset about that, I’ve never worked 9 to 6 but it can’t be all that different than any other shift. Hopefully it’ll allow the worst of the traffic to die down both ways for me. Hopefully.
I can’t tell you much about my job, but what I can tell you is that I’ll do it well, once I know all of the aspects of my position. I’m to understand it’s a created position, so really that’s all the more reason for them to see that job as mine and no one else’s. That’s my mission anyways. Being unemployed incited feelings in me that I don’t care to revisit, however I look at it I feel I could have and should have avoided it still, but I do realize that maybe this had to happen to get me out of the job I was in.
I enjoyed most of the people that I worked with there, but I can honestly say I have never worked in a more hostile environment in my life, only one other time in my life can I compare that experience to, and I ran from that one too. I remember roughly a week before I found that “job” I had told a coworker that I was taking the first train out of there. That’s what I did, sadly that train derailed come payday, but lessons learned…water under the bridge…yada yada yada.
We’re on a new page, it’s a new day and you know what? I’m excited.
I had an uncle, my mom’s brother, who was a towering giant of a man. As a child when you were around him you felt incredibly safe and protected but at the same time, scared of him – you never want to anger a six plus foot tall man when you’re only three feet tall, lol.
I remember our families, my sisters and I and our cousin Rebecca spending a lot of time together when we were younger, before our families all settled in different areas and our lives became too busy for regular forays to visit family in other states.
We had a lot of fun, for a long time all of the kids in our family were girls until my cousin Wesley came along (named after my uncle). Regardless when we were younger we would all inevitably anger the big man, always far too late at night for us little girls to be awake and giggling, and we’d hear the giant bellow from the living room, “Girls, GO TO SLEEP!”. We would all gasp and close our eyes very tightly, laying as silently as we could in case he came to check.
And when he did, those footsteps through the house lasted an eternity! Rebecca always gave us away, she was defiant from the start, and that still hasn’t changed about her.
My uncle’s name was John, and he had a tour in Vietnam when he was young, lost a best friend there. In the late 90’s when I was still too wrapped up in my own teenaged life to notice, my uncle started battling the big C. Cancer.
I didn’t really become cognizant of the battles he was going through until my son and I got our own place and I became much more involved with my family. (my marriage had isolated me from them).
I remember one year when my uncle was having a particularly hard time, and this was after battling cancer off and on for probably ten years or so, and he had indicated to the family that he didn’t want to fight it anymore. I was devastated, my uncle had been a deacon in mine and my sister’s baptisms and we all felt a closeness to him, almost like a father to us. My mother and I arranged to visit for a weekend and did, staying in a motel room and visiting with my Grandfather while we were in Oklahoma, where my uncle had settled.
After we came back home, I wrote my uncle a letter, and though I don’t recall everything that I said, I remember recording raw emotion and desperation like I’ve never felt before, pouring out of me into that letter. I wanted him to continue to fight, a big man such as he, a vehicle of God like himself, surely could push on and beat this, just around the next corner.
He continued to fight after that, and I wrote a few more letters to him, but increasingly his health got worse, and for most of the last I’ll say two years of his life, he was in declining health and leaving home less often.
In the spring of 2006 we buried my Uncle. It was a very hard time for our family and we’ve all struggled since that time to remain close and in touch, sometimes when family suffers a loss like this it’s hard to get together without thinking of those we’ve lost. My grandmother, who is a confirmed saint, had to bury her oldest son – and her best friend. I have a huge frog in my throat as I write this, it was an incredibly painful time for all of us.
Days like tomorrow remind me of him, and the Agent Orange that he was exposed to in Vietnam that eventually took his life. When I look at my cousin Rebecca it pains me to think about her having to continue her life without him in it, they always shared a closeness and a bond that was palpable to the rest of the family. I envied her relationship at times, as I didn’t have that kind with my own father.
I think about all the fathers and sons at war for our country right now and worry for them, praying to an unknown god that they will return to their families and enjoy a long and plentiful life.
This post is in memory of my Uncle, John Tuck, who fought and died for his country. I miss my uncle.
