Rising to the occasion

It has been interesting to see how various parties have responded to Mom's illness, which I liken in its impact to a hand grenade thrown into the middle of a church picnic.

Take my father. He is as controlling as it is possible to be. Always has been. Perfectionist, pin-neat, pays his bills the same day he gets them (even in the days before online banking). When he wanted to stop smoking, he threw the pack into the trash can, and that was it. End of story.

Perhaps because of his own steely willpower, life's messes, like illness or some of the more unsavory human weaknesses and oddities (addictions; greed; laziness; overweight) have always repulsed him. Particularly the illness part. As a child, I was admonished to "shake off" illness or given some horrible holistic cough syrupy stuff to swallow, which has been proven toxic decades later. He was hard pressed to visit his own mother as she lay, riddled senseless with strokes, for years at a nursing home. When we did go, he would hang back in the room, while I spoke to her, stroking her hand and trying to find out how much of her was left inside.

So when this dementia crap came down the pike, he basically went ballistic. Mom breaks things; she had a spate of leaving her purse at this or that restaurant; her dining habits have deteriorated. At first, he responded by trying to keep it all reigned in, an impossibility. He raged and roamed around, a maniac. At one point, he had us all searching their vacation home for a small plastic shower hook that had gone missing. Stuff like that.

But now, he's somehow stopping fighting it. Not only has he taken on an incredible load, like all of the driving, much of the food prep, and all of the household management -- he's there with the little things. Driving to the bigbox to pick up a pack of Depends. Buttering her bread, and making sure it gets to her mouth.

He's also finally attended to his health; losing weight, eating better. It's all rather staggering, and his behavior has been a big factor in keeping me sane for the past couple of months.

It also shows that people can change, no matter how late in life, and in the most mysterious and wonderful ways.