My family gets together at my my sister's home in Idaho for Christmas. She doesn't live in that home but hopes to someday. It's huge and accommodates all of us and our families. In 2008, since Dad had moved in with us, we felt it wouldn't be right to go to Idaho. Dad was still under 24-hour care with Carmi. He was getting better. He no longer had a catheter and the pressure in his head was lower. There was more clarity in this thinking. The time he had been at our house had been comfortable. He had been sweet, vulnerable and appreciative----very appreciative---of all we had done for him. I marveled at how well the transition had been. The Christmas of '08 we opted to stay at home. We didn't feel it was right to go have Christmas in Idaho and leave Dad at home with a caregiver. We also didn't think Dad would live much longer and that this Christmas would be his last. I didn't want the memory of my dad spending his last Christmas alone with a caregiver and no family.
Long about March, Dad was doing quite well. He no longer needed 24-hour care, he was more lucid, his balance was better, he was stronger. But an odd thing happened: he started to get critical. I couldn't dream of ever maintaining the clean house he always had. My home is slightly cluttered and all my desks, no matter where they are----are full of papers. (What in the world am I supposed to do with them all?) Dad was starting to say things about my clutter. He was also getting curious to the point of being nosy. "Where are you going?" "When will you be back?" "Where is Bill?" "Who's going to be here for dinner?" "What's for dinner every night this week?" "That computer has been on the counter all week. Where does it belong?" and so on---all thinly veiled criticisms of our life, our inferior cleanliness, and his desire to know every single thing. The need to plan dinners for the week was not something I could tolerate. It's not a boarding house. It's not a restaurant either. Food will be cooked and it will be set on the table for whoever happens to be there that evening. Dad got to the point where he was trying to keep track of Bill. One day he said, "I'm not tattling but Bill left this morning and was gone all day." I said,"You're tattling Dad." His constant need to know where we were, how long we were going to be home, and what we were doing got oppressive. I started having feelings of wanting to avoid Dad. I'm almost 60 years old; I don't want to be reporting to anybody, especially my father.
This was the beginning of a deterioration of the father/daughter relationship I had once so greatly cherished.
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