In short, it's all very complicated and sad and I often find myself at loggerheads with my father about any number of things.
I am a Daddy's girl, so when I say that my dad can be a bastard, I say it after I've given him a LOT of latitude.
Still, the nursing home has been a revelation to me and not entirely in sad or scary ways.
It takes so little to brighten a few moments of the residents' day. Yesterday I wore a red and white toile skirt and every woman I passed who was sentient remarked on how pretty it was, how much they miss girlie dresses and skirts in vivid colors. There was a traffic jam on the way from my mother's room to the lobby, which is sunnier and more comfortable than the nooks that are a jabble of television non-watched by residents who are wheelchair and dementia-bound, and I had to ask a woman if I could move her wheelchair so we could get through. She didn'y understand at first but acquiesed when I explained again. I found a spot she seemed to like and, as I walked away, I trailed my hand across her shoulders.
She said something as I began to push Mom on. I bent down and asked her to repeat it.
"You'll be back soon, won't you?"
What could I say but yes?
One insentient patient had dropped the lambie she holds and nurses on. I stopped to pick it up and lay it in her lap. The woman next to her looked me deeply in the eyes and said "Thank you." So, too, I was able to communicate in a normal voice Mother's tablemate's desire for a second bowl of clam chowder last night, the first semi-solid food she's been allowed in quite a while. She thinks the staff ignores her when it's more a matter of not hearing her soft voice and tendency to tuck her chin into her chest. That soup was the best thing she'd ever tasted.
Of all the treats and sensible things that have made my mother's life more bearable are the down quilt my niece gave her for Christmas and the plush yellow Lab puppy I sent her. She calls it Taffy, after the first dog my parents had, and she takes it everywhere, as many patients do. I'm surprised that she remembers she has it, given her memory loss, but it was an instant success.
This stuff breaks my heart, although the facility is the most loving environment I could imagine, with jolly nurses' aides and PT staff who pass through the seas of wheelchairs and stop to talk and touch, two resident dogs and a cat. I wish the chaplain guitar trio that performs every week would switch from Jesus music to the Marine Corp anthem, which I got Mom's dinner companions singing last night, or to "Dancing Cheek-to-Cheek" -- songs that these people know in the recesses of their minds and need only the tune to bring them to sudden animation. I wish the food was better (one of my father's and my fights has been over taking dinner to Mother: he says it insults the staff).
Mostly I wish I didn't have the feeling that I'm fucked if I stay and damned if I leave. If I stay, I'll eat and lose valuable time and time with my beloved Henry, who is moving to the suburbs in August. If I leave, my brain will be three hours behind, wondering if Dad is OK, if Mom needs lotion rubbed on her swollen legs, if the doctor is pressed to order a neuro work-up. That worry drains the value of my time at home as well.