Moving Day Minus One

 Oops, this was supposed to be posted yesterday.  So pretend it was and I'll put up today's post tomorrow...

It felt strange packing up Dad's stuff today.  It wasn't that there was all that much (there wasn't - he came up here with what fit in a sedan and he is leaving with less), it was the act of preparing to have him leave tomorrow.

I'm a bit torn about the whole thing.  Sometimes he refers to me "kicking him out", which is not very nice.  But I understand that he would very much prefer to remain in a regular house with a family member.  Moving in with a bunch of strangers has to be scary.

At the same time, he generally understands that he needs more professional care (if not today, then soon).  Sometimes I too wish that I could take care of him for longer (to delay this inevitable final move).  But I can tell that I can't take care of him much longer without turning myself into a full time nurse and I don't have the training or experience to do it much longer anyway.  Heck, I can't even simply pick him up when he falls.

I'm not feeling exactly guilty.  Indeed, I will be relieved to be free of the responsibility.  I will be relieved to not have to be around the house as much as possible, to not have to explain why I am leaving it and for how long and why.  I will enjoy being able to just go outside without worrying he will fall and hurt himself while I'm out.

I am relieved that he is taking this change in his life as well as he is.  When I first talked to him about assisted-care living, he said he didn't think I could make him leave.  I envisioned having to nearly carry him to the car and driving him away screaming he was being kidnapped (as he nearly did when my brother and I moved him from FL to here).  At least now, he seems quietly resigned to the necessity of the move.  He also understands that this move will eventually end in hospice care at the "end".

But it will feel odd not to have him here.  I'll have to re-learn my old habits.  I'll be eating WHEN I feel like it, eating WHAT I feel like, going out WHEN I want, staying up as LATE as I feel like, getting up WHEN I feel like, etc.  I may even start playing golf and going fishing again.  I didn't do those last things the year before he arrived, but for the last year I felt like I couldn't, which is a big difference.

I will focus on the thoughts that he will have better personal care and more companionship.  I will focus on the thought that, after a couple of weeks, he will actually be happier in assisted care (something I have been told by many to be "almost universally" true.  I will focus on the thought that, after a month or so, he will forget he was ever here (his memory of his place in FL was gone after only 3 months and his memory is much worse now).  Very soon, his memories will be only day-to-day and of events decades ago.  His recent past will just be absent.

There is most of the family nearby where he is moving.  I will probably visit every month.  The day he doesn't remember who I am, I will stop visiting.  I won't be visiting for my benefit. I don't have to see him to love him as my Dad.

He will eventually forget being here and who I am.  But I will remember this past year...