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I wish someone had told me the true cost of taking care of my parents. That it would be a cost greater than the sum of its parts. That to survive and then emerge from it would itself be one of the great costs to bear. That I might have to bear the cost for the rest of my life.
So I wish for it. I wish someone had told me the true cost of coming home to take care of my parents.
I had never been so happy to see my dad.
It was three months into the shelter in place of 2020. The streets were still mostly empty. The world was mostly quiet. And my spontaneous, indoor visits to see my dad were a thing of the past. Sitting beside him, placing a hand on his arm, listening to music together—just being with him—all of it was gone.
Instead, I’d go jogging by his place, peeking through these floor-to-vaulted-ceiling windows for the chance at a glimpse of him. But always, no luck, not on the world’s side, and not on mine. Still, I’d go anyway.
Because it was what I had. With no contact of any kind—visual, written, spiritual—it started feeling like I didn’t have a dad anymore. Like he was already gone. I knew he wasn’t, but it felt like it.
Which pretty much sums up the last few years with my dad anyway. He’d changed so much, forgotten so much, although he managed to still be the simultaneously charming and aggravating dad I’ve always remembered. He wasn’t my dad anymore, but still, he kind of was.
And then one day, I went jogging by his place and one of the staff happened to be outside.
“Do you want to see your dad?”
How many pieces of proof does it take to convince you that somebody is the person they say they are? Two? Three?
“Hi, Dad,” I say, well, I say to my dad.
“Hi, Daniel,” the man seated behind the floor-to-ceiling window says back to me through a phone.
That is in fact, my name.
One.
This is the question that is on my mind when I wake up. It’s still the question when I brush my teeth in the morning. When I brush my teeth in the evening, it will still be the question on my mind.
I suppose one place to start is the admission that my world around me has crashed and burned and is not much more than a sea of smoldering bits and pieces.
That seems so dramatic and unnecessary though. I am literally typing in a room with a roof over my head and a carpet under my feet and furniture I could lie down on and a whole host of other things that some people would die to have like a refrigerator that I could stock with several weeks’ full of food if I didn’t choose to live week by week.
So one of these feelings is the facade. The metaphor, or the reality.
A Honda Odyssey is just a minivan. Rock Dust Light Star is a song by Jamiroquai. A decade is ten years.
The year is 2011. The date feels like a distant memory because it is. It was ten years ago, and you wonder what ten years from now will be like, and if it too, will one day feel like a distant memory.
Sometimes I blog about life, which meant taking care of my parents. Now it’s about other things.
Sometimes I write stuff in other places.
Mostly though, I don’t write. You can however, write to me. You can also subscribe for news and updates and for the-mythical blogpost.