Inside Aging Parent Care

Dad’s Independence Day Redux

By Carol July 3rd, 2011

Here it is–another 4th of July and Dad has been gone more than one full year. We had our quiet remembrance of his passing on Friday. I decided to re-post a piece from last year because it still says it best.

Dad didn’t quite make it to the Fourth of July, but “independence” was his rallying cry. Maintaining his independence was his first concern when he moved to Denver two years ago. Assisted living enabled him to secure the level of independence that he craved. He had his own apartment there, and that became home to him. He made the choice to engage hospice care only when he was assured that he could preserve his independence by remaining in his home.

In the final week of his 91years my father was still …

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Deep Inside Aging Parent Care One Year Later

By Carol June 28th, 2011

We were both blessed and cursed with the chance to travel with my father Frank down the long road toward the land of death. We went as far as we could with him. Then we turned back to make the return trip without him. We were changed and our lives were changed by the experience of his dying and by losing him.

In just a very few days it will be the first anniversary of Dad’s death. Last year at this time, the hospice nurses thought he had another two weeks or more remaining to him. On what turned out to be the last day of Dad’s life, Bill and I consulted with the hospice chaplain. I was trying to prepare myself for our last days together and to find the words to say …

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My Mother’s Hands–A Poem

By Judi June 26th, 2011

My mother’s hands

One day I was slicing tomatoes with my mother’s hands. Gone were my small ones and in their place her wider ones wrinkled knuckles veins like raised relief mountains on an antique globe. I thought I would miss the idleness of my former pair known to sleep in and outsource the vacuuming. But when I touched my cheeks with her cool smooth palms I left them there for a long time understanding that I was now the one he will seek out to feel safe.

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Another Father’s Day

By Carol June 19th, 2011

Last year at this time we didn’t know that Dad was less than two weeks from the end of his life. We knew the end was coming. But no one thought that he would leave quite so soon.

Since he was weak and frail, our celebration was low key. We had dinner together in the big dining room at his assisted living residence. We stayed in because he could no longer leave home for the joyrides he loved. I don’t remember if we played our regular poker game that day.

Judi wrote the Father’s Day post. Looking back I notice that all three of us were posting about “caregiver stress” day after day. I was suffering from insomnia and having faintly threatening dreams when I did sleep. I recognize now that I was struggling …

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The Father’s Day We’ll Never Have

By Carol June 14th, 2011

This is our first Father’s Day without Dad. If he were still here with us, I would have liked to offer him the opportunity to be honored by Operation Resolve on a trip on a special flight with a group of other WW II vets to visit the National World War II Memorial.

If Dad were still alive at 92, a trip from Denver to Washington, D.C. might have been too much for him in his very frail state and with his nervousness about flying. On the other hand, if he could have made it, I think that being honored with a group of other WW II vets might well have been a healing experience for him–one that would have eased his mind in his last days.

World War II vets are dying at …

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