Driving My Dad

I had to drive my dad to Oceanside the other day, so I had a good 20 minutes to mull over why we marginalize old people.

I mean, obviously, they remind us of death. So, that's huge.

But not only are they pictures of what we never want to turn into, they don't smell very good. Not that my dad was ever the greatest smelling person. But I've visited nursing homes, and this smell was familiar. It's the smell of B.O., feces, and medicine.

Here are the 3 stages of bad smell proximity:

1. Oh! This is bad. Can't...breathe...

2. I'm handling it. I can do this!

3. This is just what air smells like.

Mostly I try to live above the "my dad" situation. I've gone through all the stages and now I sit comfortably in Acceptance. But really, like anything that makes you uncomfortable, I pass over him any time we have any contact. When I drop a kid off at my parents' house, it's, "Hi Dad! Bye Dad!" The misfiring synapses in his Parkinson's and dementia addled brain have barely processed my presence before I'm outta there.

As I reached over to buckle my Dad in, breathing in the stench of sick and decay, I couldn't do my breeze by thing. I had to face The Bad, at least for a moment. He can barely get his legs in the my CRV far enough so that I can close the car door. Despite having just taken his 4pm meds, his trembling fingers cannot manage a simple buckle in a latch. Something he's probably done thousands of times in the course of his 77 years is now an excruciating hurdle. I stood there for 2 whole minutes respecting his dignity before I stepped in. Pre-dementia Dad would never have let me help him.

On the silent drive I turned up Mumford & Sons because my Dad's love of folk instruments is one of the things he gave me. I am grateful for it; it's a purely good thing. I can trace my love of indie folk directly back to his endless playing of the classic hammer dulcimer cassette "Shakin' Down the Acorns." I thought he might like the banjos and the bluegrass notes on the live Mumford & Sons tracks I had on. Not that either of us said anything about the music. We didn't say anything. You can't easily have a conversation with him, as he is often nodding off or asks you to repeat yourself 1o times. Once you've done that, he doesn't get what you said anyway.

Maybe I should make the effort? But no, my coping mechanism is loud music and avoidance. So far it's working.