Yesterday was my Dad's birthday, actually August 11, 1927 was his birthday. He died on December 14, 2010. Last year and again on this year, my siblings and my Mom celebrated our memories and the legacy of values that Dad left us.
His last years were not happy ones - for him or for us. He began to suffer the effects of dementia in the early 2000's and by 2005 was well on the way to being unable to live a normal life. My family has always been tightly knit, but we closed in more in support of Mom and Dad and we managed for a couple of years until in late in 2006 we had to place him in a nursing home. We lucked out in many ways - he ended up in a wonderful place right in Lodi so Mom was 10 minutes away. He had fantastic care but the disease is relentless and took more and more of him every week.
He watched his mother's decline into dementia and it was very hard for him to cope with it happening to him. He fought it for a long time - the fear and frustration must have been horrifying. I did my best to help by learning all I could about dementia and learning how to make things easier for him. It breaks my heart even now to think of how afraid he had to be.
I made this quilt for the first AAQI show: Alzheimer's: Forgetting Piece by Piece. I wanted to depict that battle, from the first realization that it might be happening to him to the point where he couldn't fight any more, when the disease won. I won't say he lost, because it wasn't a fair fight. The quilt is named "The Crooked Path", with my own sub-title "Daddy Let Me Hold Your Hand".
Thank you for this heart filled post, Diane. It touched me so, and fills me to overflowing with just how much we all go through. Your quilt says it all. The jagged path through so much darkness, so much pain, so much loss, until bit by bit we are all tiny bits of our former selves, trapped, alone, and lost forever to who we knew ourselves and our loved ones, to be. I don't think it matters if we are the victim, or we are the family member who loves them so. It is all so, so, so hard.
ReplyDeleteI remind myself, each and every day that I am making a difference. I made in in my father's life, I am making it in my mother's life, and I am making it in my own life. But dang. I sure wish I didn't have to and I cannot wait for that day to come when none of us will have to do any of this at all.
Nope
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