Caring for a Memory

Over the past couple of years I have been helping my dad with his finances (checkbook, making sure the bills are paid, advocating for him with the investment people, etc). Dad is still aware, but has experienced an emerging confusion about how to deal with all this. So once a month I go in and visit and balance his check book and ward off the "leaches" that attach themselves to seniors.
His emotional progression has been from being angry at himself about not being able to keep track. The most common phrase, "You don't know what it like to be stupid!" And all my assurances that he is not stupid, but is just entering another phase. He was aware of his lapses in memory and ability discern the changing world and it made him mad. Now he doesn't realize he has asked the same questions over and over in just the last few minutes. So our visits have become an endless conversation loop about the same concerns he seems to be focused on at the moment. The upside is that he no longer gets angry about forgetting, because he doesn't realize he has forgotten.

For those who don't know him or remember him from years ago, it is hard to realize the difference. Until the last few years he was a funny, accommodating, ACTIVE guy, with no deceit in him at all. To my chagrin I have fallen far short of this model. He always had something going and was looking for new things to do. His common directive to me as a kid was, "While you are resting, you need to...." and give me chore to do. I never realized I spent that much time "resting".

My emotional journey through this has been another matter. Over the past few years I have become the one "directing" and he was the one responding. The role shift was painful. There is something in me that still wants to be the good son, to be obedient, to emulate the best aspects of my dad. To have him proud of me. And to be the one who has to shift him away from what he wants to do and be feels is in direct conflict with the "good son" perception.

We are moving he and his wife to an assisted living facility. A move he has made clear he does not want to make. And for the first time in decades we are in direct conflict about the direction of his life. The decisions being made are for the first time for me a direct violation of the obedient son model. And it is painful for me as well as for him.

I have noticed in myself a very gradual slide after each visit towards depression about the decisions I am having to make. And after this last visit, while eating dinner with my bride, I broke down completely. Surprising us both. But it made me wonder why this was so difficult? Everyone goes through this at some point. Part of the answer seemed to be buried somewhere in the knowledge that I was struggling with the two versions of my dad. The version I have known for the first 60 years of my life would never have needed or tolerated this intrusion by me. But the last 2-3 years have shown me another version of my dad. The one I am helping is confused, he is less capable physically. He needed my help. But this is not the dad that I grew up with.

So I am caring for a memory. When he is finally gone, I will not reflect on this current version. My memories will swirl around the funny guy that always found chores for me, the guy who would be moving before my mother or his current wife could finish a request of him, the guy who was always working outside, The guy who believed that God wanted him to do something, the guy who never said anything negative about anyone. The decisions now being made are in honor of the first version, in honor of all he has meant to me. Realizing this has lifted the depression a bit.
So to honor the first version, I care for the current one.

Godspeed to all out there who have gone through this. You have my respect. Growing up is not very much fun.
Don