Dad with his two youngest great-grandkids, Liam and Colin Roland, at my brother’s house in Olympia, Washington
Last Wednesday, I wrapped up my writing day early so that I could drive to Denver and pick up my Dad at the airport. He’s 84 years old and legally blind–not that his limited vision slows him down much.
The airline had arranged for Dad to be escorted from the plane to the main terminal. I had reminded him to turn his cellphone on when the plane landed, so he could call me if anything went wrong.
Of course, Dad can’t see the buttons on his cellphone very well, which means the voice-dial feature doesn’t always work.
It’s a three-hour drive from my house over the mountains and across the Denver Metro Area to the airport. In good weather like last week, the first two hours are beautiful, with sweeping views across high grasslands toward distant peaks, and dramatic canyons winding through forests splashed with aspen groves. Beautiful or not, the drive always wears me out.
Buffalo Peaks across High Creek in South Park, on my route to Denver.
So by the time I got to the airport on Wednesday evening, parked, and figured out where I needed to meet Dad and the escort, I was whipped. But Dad wasn’t: he smiled when I hailed him, and talked non-stop from that moment until bedtime. (For all I know, he continued talking, but I couldn’t hear him!)
Dad’s excited, with good reason. After ten years in the Denver area (we moved my folks there in 2002 from Tucson, where they had lived for 23 years; my mom died last year, in February), Dad is making one more move, to western Washington. There, he’ll be close to the remainder of the Tweit clan: my brother, Bill, and his wife, Lucy Winter; their girls, Heather Roland, Sienna Bryant, Alice Tweit; and the big girl’s kids, my dad’s five great-grandchildren. (Four of the latter are pre-schoolers, one just hit his teen years.)
Dad and my brother, Bill, with the great-grands, binoculars raised, “birdwatching.” (Thanks to Heather and Sienna for arranging the photo!)
Once Dad decided that my suggestion of moving was a good idea, he was ready to go. He toured Panorama, the a retirement community I suggested near my brother and Lucy, picked an apartment there, and put down a deposit.
Hence my week-day trip to Denver. Dad, who has been away in Washington state for two months at an excellent Department of Veteran’s Affairs training for the blind and visually-impaired, was returning to get ready for the move. Which meant I would be doing the getting ready, and he would be cooperating good-naturedly (talking all the while).
Thursday morning I set to work, helping Dad fill out the forms involved in leaving his current place; calling moving companies to set up appointments for estimates on packing and moving his one-bedroom-apartment-sized household; sorting through and boxing up things like cookware he no longer uses with his limited vision; transferring computer files and helping him get set up on his Macintosh after a summer of using a customized PC….
By the time I climbed into my Subaru for the drive back home yesterday afternoon, we had picked a mover, signed a contract and gotten dates for packing, loading, and delivery; arranged for pickup of the things he isn’t taking with; and made a detailed check-list for what else needs to be done before moving day–in three weeks.
Aspen gold on the approach to Kenosha Pass, 10,000 feet above sea level, between Denver and Salida, Colorado.
And I was beyond exhausted. As the highway curved to climb the first of the three mountain passes, I spotted the season’s first brilliant gold patch of aspens, and pulled off on the shoulder, laid my head on the steering wheel and cried.
Last fall, Richard and I shared his final Rocky Mountain autumn on our way home from The Big Trip, our 29-year-delayed honeymoon. He died two months later.
After a while, I dried my eyes and pulled out my camera. I got out of the car and shot a photo, and then another, and another. The sun was shining, the aspen vivid gold, the peaks bare against a bluebird-blue sky.
When I had looked my fill, I got back into the car and drove home.
so many changes for you in so short a time Susan…holding you close to my heart dear one- This will be a good move for your dad.
So many moments, visuals will be reminders…i am so glad you can cry- crying in so important.
love to you dear one
chery
Doc Chery, Thank you for that reassurance. I think it will be a great move for my dad. I’m just hoping to live through it! This week I have two major freelance pieces due and two small ones. And I need to go back to Denver on Friday afternoon to help Dad with the next batch of stuff that needs to be done before the move…. Yikes. But once he’s moved, I can focus on all of the other projects in my life, including finishing this house and its landscaping, so I can put it on the market next summer, and the biggie, figuring out how to actually earn an income again. Oh, and work on the writing I love too. I’m not asking much, am I? Hugs to you and Miss Maria and the tribe of furry, four-footed and -hoofed ones!
Sometime just saying what we did, tells how we feel. Xox
Thinking of you Susan,
D
That’s true, Denese, as you showed with your story. Bless you! Susan
Life isn’t anything if it isn’t change, no? I wish your dad the very best and truly admire him for his choices.
I so worry about your overwhelm, sweet Susan. In my own way, I went through a similar overwhelm until last Tues. when my heart said “No More!”, and I had a massive, A-Fib event that didn’t respond to the ER medications for three terrifying hours and could well have killed me. Please, please, take care of yourself. May you find stillness amidst life’s many demands.
Bobbe, I am so glad you survived your A-fib event, and I hope you can listen to your heart and take life more easily. It’s the only one you have, after all…. I am actually quite deliberate about everything I do—I have a lifetime of practice managing my own chronic illness, and that is good training for dealing with the crises in my life now. Which is not to say I’m perfect. I’m not. But I do self-correct pretty well, and I do pay attention and learn, which is critical. These days my best stillness is first thing in the morning, when I write for an hour before dawn with my bedroom door opened to day waking up outside. Hearing the sounds of the crows and siskins, the hummingbirds chirping and the geese flying over is so soothing…. Blessings!
Moving takes so much energy, Susan, even if it is your father you are moving. Maybe more in that case. I know you listen to your body, but please do listen hard. Getting so exhausted is debilitating. As you know, we moved out of our house of 31 years in three weeks in June. I finally cried when trying to deal with my mother, and I know it was my exhaustion. Gerry’s father lived with his grandchild and two small children and he loved it! He lived several years longer, being happy, reading at his great-grandchild’s school, being awakened in the morning by two little kids jumping on his bed. I think your father will love being so close to the little ones. Your photos are lovely, and what a sweet way to remember Richard. Take care, friend.
Julie, I think this move may be less intense than your and Gerry’s move out of your house of 31 years. I can only imagine how exhausted you felt, and I’m not surprised. Even though you were both ready for the move, just the accumulation of time–all those sunrises and sunsets there, and the seasons changing! Not to mention the accretion of habits and stuff; it would all be completely overwhelming. How sweet that Gerry’s dad got to live with his grandchild and great-grands. That’s a real gift. I know my dad will love being close to the youngest generation of Tweits, and I will enjoy the break from being responsible for his daily life. On this last visit, I actually found myself enjoying him again, I think because I was aware of beginning to slip out of that overwhelming responsibility already. I’m a mite burned out on caregiving, as you can imagine….
Such an influx of leave-takings by beloveds, lately—albeit your dad’s taking place on this terrestrial plane. A lotta shifting of foundations.
Opening the pre-dawn bedroom door, letting the becoming-day waft in—what a proper way to “self-correct” and to start the day. As for the geese, just the other day, I heard them while inside my apartment. (That was a very pleasant shock—it’s been decades, if ever, that I’ve heard them other than while outside.) For me, goose-honks are among the bestest menders of frayed edges.
May this incoming autumnal season find your frayed and shaggy pieces, mended.
Aren’t the morning geese calls lovely, Eduardo? I’m glad you can hear them even indoors. That’s a real treasure, especially with your particular audio challenges.
I wouldn’t say foundations shifting so much as responsibilities being traded. I’m ready to let my dad go, and my brother and SIL and the girls and their families are being very generous about welcoming him. That makes me lucky, I think.
Susan, once things settle, I hope you can have enough stillness and naps and a bit of good company (only when and for as long as needed) to re-fill your well and ground your soul and locate your personal compass again.
My sister called today to say that Mom was (at least today) settled in at her new place: perhaps this will be the case on more days than it is not.
Stillness sounds heavenly, Deb! Thanks. (Company, not so much. I could do without company for the next few months, in fact, but I have a full schedule of artist-residents for the Terraphilia program.)
I am glad to hear that your mom is having good days of being in place and happy about it; I share your wish that it will be the case more days than not.
I wish for you time to breathe and remember where you are, and energy to take advantages of the opportunities coming your way….
As always, Susan, I’m so touched by your stories and your honesty. I would probably have cried the whole way in each direction – I admire your balance, allowing yourself to grieve and carrying on with intention. And I love the image of you writing, door open to emerging day and makes me think about doing it too. We usually hear the geese in the evening, as they fly back to the river 2 blocks E/SE from the small lakes 4 blocks west. Only recently did I realize they’re the same geese, used to wonder where they went at night and in the winter!
I feel for the exhaustion you describe. I used to get exhausted and push on. In the last few years, now that I’m older, I could no longer push on, and can no long push to a state of exhaustion. As a chiro/acup friend of my used to say: Aging is rude! Indeed. Blech!
Mary, I think the intentions–whether we’re conscious of them or not–are what give us the impetus to carry on. I just have an excuse to be more aware of them then most people. I chuckled when you said that you used to “get exhausted and push on” and now you’re not able to do that anymore. Having lived with Lupus my entire adult life (and probably my childhood too, but no one recognized it) I’ve never been able to “push through” exhaustion without paying a high price for it. So perhaps my awareness of intentionality comes from the lifelong practice of having to decide where to use my limited energy and being acutely aware that if I use energy for one thing, it may well not be available for something else.
The writing with the door open to the world outside is something I took from Julia Cameron’s book about money, The Prosperous Heart. It’s a version of her “morning pages” exercise. She has you do it long-hand on paper, and I did that for the first month to see hat that was like, and after my hands rebelled and began to hurt like crazy, I took to bringing my laptop to bed and sitting up with my back against pillows and my laptop in my lap (on a pillow so it’s ergonomically correct for me). It works well.
Enjoy your commuting geese! Hugs to you….
HUGE hug.
Thanks, Blanche. You know how this journey with helping an aging parent live alone and independently goes…. Hugs to you as you head for your mom’s next month.