Something Different

I started writing about my current existential crises which is probably a bout of depression.  Most of it was typed out and was morose.  I deleted it all.  I'm going a different direction with this post.  I was about to stop everything and play a video game.  That got me thinking.

Pre-Dad Days

A video game series that I loved is the Fallout series.  I played the heck out of Fallout and Fallout 2.  And I loved those games.  On a tangent before continuing, Arcanum: Steampunk and Magic was by the original Fallout team and the end story changed depending on your actions just like Fallout.

My standard MO was to play a good character.  Help people and get rid of the bad guys.  I don't think that I was pretending, but trying to do as if the situations were happening to me and how I think that I should act.  I think that my character had the reputation of "savior of the wasteland" or something like that.  Fact checking, it looks like "Champion" in Fallout 2.  

After completing the story line, I'd go back and play a demon from hell which meant my game character killed anyone and everyone in the game.  Bounty hunters would be after my character (random encounters.)  It was sort of fun, after being so good.

Dad Days

Fast-forward 10 years, I was married and had a one-year old. AND Fallout 3 came out!  Okay, I was much more excited about my baby, than the game, but was excited for the game.  No fear, baby took priority.  Game play was a rare luxury.

Back to my MO.  I played good characters.  I helped everyone.  I finished the game.  Also, on a tangent, as much as I loved the game, the ending was so terribly that it wiped out all my good feelings.  I was so mad.  Alright, back to the topic.

After completing the game, I went back and intended my character to be a total bastard.  My character shot one innocent NPC...

Oh my god...

The feeling was terrible.  This was just a video game.  It's not real.  Why did I feel so bad?  I just couldn't do it.  I turned off the game and tried to understand what happened.

Baby

My baby did it.  She changed me.  It's amazing to think that she could have such a profound effect on me.  Years later, I did read an article that researches discovered physiological changes in fathers.  Previously, the common belief was that changes only happened to mothers.  Biology is an amazing thing.

Last Day with My Dad

 The purpose is to write down the details before I forget too much.  It's been two weeks, since his passing.  I still have a lot to do to help my mom.

Day Before

My dad had been sent to the ICU from the rehab center, one day before he would have been released to go home.  My mom saw him there.  The doctor told her that he was dying.  They said that if they took him off life support, he would pass on then.  She wasn't prepared, so she asked to wait until the morning.  She secured permission for me to accompany here and to see him at 9:30 AM.

The thought of watching my father die within minutes was hard.  I would be there for him.  I would hold his hand and tell him how much I loved him.  

Last Day

I got a call at 7 AM.  It was one of the doctors.  He told me that my dad was awake, alert, and responding to questions.  He asked that my mom and I come as soon as we can, and that he would probably live for several days.  I was happy that he was alert, but it was an emotional punch to be told the day before that he'd die almost immediately after removing life support.

I want to say that we got to the hospital around 8 AM.  We signed in and headed up to his room.  He was indeed awake and alert.  I could see it in his eyes. I went to his right side and my mom was on his left.  We both said that we loved him.  My mom told him that he could leave this life and that it was selfish of her to ask him to stay.

He held my hand tight and looked at me with his bright blue eyes.  The doctor came in and said that they were going to remove the breathing tube and suggested that we step out.  My mom left the room.  I opted to stay.  They removed the tube and he seemed fine.  His breathing was good enough.

He had no voice, because his lungs and muscles were too weak to make a strong sound.  He could only mouth words.  He did say that he loved me.

The doctor came in and said that he wanted to talk to my mom and I in the hallway.  My mom goes.  I tell my dad and start to stand up.  He doesn't let go of my hand.  I smile at him and sit back down to be with him.  The doctor pops his head back in the door and I just tell him that my dad won't let go and I'm staying with him.

I don't remember everything that I told him.  I said that I loved him and that I hoped that he was proud of me.  And that I knew that I was a strange person that he had as a son.  It's hard to read lips, but I think that he was reassuring me that he was proud and loved me much.

Decision

My mom came back.  She said that the doctor had told her that his body was shutting down.  There was no chance for recovery.  The doctor came in and said that we could take him home or that he could stay at the hospital.  My mom didn't know what to do.  I said that we should take him home and she agreed.

This was around 9:30 AM.  I told my dad that we were taking him home and that I was leaving to get the house ready for him to come home.  He nodded and let go of my hand.  I said that I loved him and would see him soon.

Setting Up

I got to my parents' home and began getting it ready.  There is a room with sliding glass doors looking out into the woods.  I thought that facing the bed to those doors would be best.  I moved my dad's reclining chair and moved a sofa over to give enough room.  My mom's piano was close by and I hoped to get my daughter to play for her granddad.

I called my niece and said that she could come down at any time.  I let my wife and daughter know what was going on.  And I waited.

A truck arrived bearing the bed and oxygen tanks.  The delivery man and I set everything up and he walked me through the usage of the equipment.  My niece and her mother (my brother's widow) had arrived, and her mom helped make up the bed.  I think that my wife was there, too.  My daughter was still taking her virtual classes at our home.

And we waited.

Homecoming

The ambulance arrived close to 5:30 PM.  I almost regret not staying longer with my dad, but I did need to get everything ready.  The EMTs brought him up into the house and got him settled in the bed.  They told us that he was still bleeding from where an intravenous line had been removed from his right inner thigh.  

I walked the EMTs out.  They remarked on how beautiful our woods were.  I pointed out the hobbit holes that my dad had made down the bank from our house.  I told them to be safe and I went back inside.

My dad was pretty much gone.  Eyes closed.  Mouth open. Little to no response to us.  I still feel that he was still there on a subconscious level.

Goodbyes

His two granddaughters got to see him.  My niece is the oldest and she got right up to her grandpa and told him how much she loved him.  My daughter is young, so she was a little afraid.  Her mother and I didn't push.  Her mom probably understood better than I.  I did get her to play a piece on the piano.

I don't have a strong recollection of what happened.  I was frazzled and tried to do all that I could.  The hospice nurse came to "admit" him to home care.  We had to change the dressing on his thigh, so I helped the nurse.  My niece's mom helped prepare dinner, before she and her daughter went home.

On Our Own

My niece and her mom went home (an hour plus drive.)  My family and my mom ate dinner and then we cleaned up the dishes.  And my wife and daughter went home.  I asked my mom for his Kindle and found "The Hobbit" on it.  I thought that reading some to him was appropriate, since he named our road, Hobbitt Trail.  It was one of his favorite books, and I had read it and the trilogy many times.  I read most of the first chapter to him, until my voice was dry and cracking some.  I asked my mom for a hard cider, and I took a break.  She played a CD of his favorite classical music.  I should have noted the music, but didn't.

My mom checked his thigh and it was a bloody mess.  I cleaned him up and changed the bandage,  Even though he didn't react to any physical discomfort, I still tried to be as gentle as I could.  This was my dad. I tried cleaning his mouth that was still bloody from intubation.  I cleaned gently and he did close his mouth on the sponge.  Some of him was still there.

Go to Bed

I was at my dad's side again, holding his hand.  My mom told me to go to bed.  I told her that I'd stay, until she was ready to lie down.  She was going to sleep on the couch beside my dad.  I would be in the guest bedroom.

She went off and did whatever she needed to.  I have no idea.  I was just there holding my father's hand and talking to him.  I told him how proud that I was of my brother for how good a father he was to his stepson.  I told my dad that was because of him.  I told my father how he did have a good effect on people.  One neighbor said he was the toughest on the road (hard work, not fighter.)  Another neighbor remarked that the street wouldn't be the same without him.  One of his friends confided in me that he couldn't read a book that my dad had given him, because every time he picked it up, he thought of my dad and started crying.  My dad wasn't famous.  He didn't do great works, but he was a good person. His circle of influence might be small, but he left his mark on those people.

Last Breath

My mom came over and she was finally ready for bed.  She told me to go.  I was still holding his hand and she was standing at the top of his bed, stroking his hair.  He took a gulping breath and stop.  She asked if he was gone.  I said no and that he had been doing this.  He took a longer, gulping breath and was gone.

We were both in shock.  "Is he gone?"  I felt for breath.  I felt for heart beat.  I got their blood pressure cuff to check, then had to check on myself to make certain that it worked.  10:40 PM.

I called the hospice number and reported that he had gone.  The same nurse that checked him in came by.  They did the paperwork.  His official time of death was listed as 11:10 PM from renal failure.

The Last Goodbye

The men from the funeral home came to get him.  They wrapped my father in his sheets and transferred him to the stretcher.  I caressed his shrouded head one last time before they put a velvet cover over him.  I walked them outside and said thank you and to be safe.

Memorial Garden

My paternal grandfather, Papa*, had a garden when he first moved to the house that my dad built for him and my grandmother.  He grew flowers and vegetables.  After he passed on, my father took over.  There's a granite slab inscribed with "Paw Paw's Garden*."  We have plaques for my grandmothers and my brother.

There's a Japanese maple that I love there.  My dad built a stone circle around it.  I will place a memorial marker for him there.  This is my garden now.  I've never been a gardener, but now I will have to learn.  It will change some under my care, just like it changed when my dad took over from his.  I will seek to honor everyone that the garden has been dedicated to.

I love and miss you all.

 

* I always thought of the spelling "Papa" whereas my dad spelled it "Paw Paw."

It's Monday, but It's Okay

 One of the managers posted a picture with that saying.  It's another day and we're still here.  The morning was overcast, so I couldn't see any stars.  I pulled weeds in the dark, fed my ducks, and put the rest in the compost pile.  

Speaking of composting, I read an article about a startup, Recompose, in Seattle.  They seek to compost humans.  I have to admit that it appeals to me.  Personally, I'm against embalming and burial in a concrete vault.  Place me in the dirt and let me return to the Earth.  Recompose "sounds" romantic and beautiful.  Place your loved one in a bed of alfalfa and let them return to soil.  Don't dig deeper.  Let's just stay at that point.

Details to Dissuade

Not trying to get morbid, but still on the topic of death - losing my dad is still too fresh.  He had opted for cremation.  I went with my mother to the funeral home to sign all the papers and confirm what was to be done with his body.  In the paperwork, she had to sign a statement that she had read details of what happens during a cremation.  The director told us that it was a law in our state.  It came about when cremation was a new option and the funeral homes lobbied against it.  They got our state to pass a law requiring that the relatives of the deceased had to read the gruesome details of what cremation did to a body.  They did it to get people to choose the embalming route.

Transition

Still going through the grief process and the changes that come with losing a loved one.  I still think that he was robbed of life, but so many people in this world have had their lives cut short.  I need to remember that.  I still worry about my mother.  They had a great marriage and loved each other very much.  Now she is alone.  I can walk to her house, but we're still so far away.  There are hours that she must fill and the pandemic makes time feel longer.  I stopped by her house to check on a few things, and found her lying on the sofa.  I asked her if she were okay.  She said that she was tired.  I asked about gardening or cleaning.  She said 'no' and that she was just tired.  Grief weighs heavily upon her.

Rambling

 Coffee

Sitting here, drinking my coffee.  Soon, I will go out and do my fowl chores (pun intended.).  Extra duties on Saturdays.  I have to turn my compost pile, in addition to cleaning the duck house and gathering greens for them.  Still, I enjoy the dark morning hours.  Too few minutes dedicated to staring up at the stars.

Angry Beaver

When my niece was younger, she watched a show called Two Angry Beavers Even being, 24 years older than her, I had watched that show some, too.  What's my point?  I have an anger issue.  Not serious enough for anyone to fear for their life, but bad enough to make my marriage difficult.  When I talked to my brother (RIP 2009) about my marital issues, he told me not to be an angry beaver.

Help

I still need help.  I feel that I have legitimate complaints about my relationship, but at the same time, there are things that I should be doing to correct issues in myself.  I am frustrated.  I am angry.  I am upset that I have a bad relationship, especially since it had been good at one time.  I feel that life piling more onto my shoulders.  I have two households to maintain and strife between them (parent and spouse.)

I do need help.  Two options that I am inclined towards are Stoicism and meditation.  As a philosophy, Stoicism appeals to me.  I think that I have begun to live some of its tenets, but my dissatisfaction disrupts.  And meditation... I think that it would be good, but, dang, it is hard.  It's so easy to stop doing it as with many other activities that I have done in the past.

Lost

I am lost.  I am certain that there are millions like me out there.  We're all lost.  I am certainly nothing special.  Not a snowflake or unicorn.  Just an asshole wishing for a better life than he deserves.

Back to Career Talk

 Toxic Environment Partially Detoxed

At my previous company, I was a lead developer.  I believe that I did good there.  I worked on making the environment less toxic.  There was a "me me me" attitude when I first got there.  It was shocking.  I did little things to help.  I was certainly not skilled in this area. A simple example of what I did was to pass out our lunches.  The company bought our lunch and we made our individual orders from the restaurant chosen for the day.  I'd distribute those.  Before that, people would just barge up to the desk, toss aside other's food and grabbed theirs.  In a few months, most people were passing out food to their coworkers.  There were still issues, but it was much more collaborative than when I first started.  It wasn't all me, but I think that I helped move us in a better direction.

Insulted

I had to undertake the daunting task of rewriting the company's public website.  I made suggestions on what I believed to be the best course of action based on technical debt avoidance.  The suggestions were ignored.  The head of IT hired a contracting group to upgrade the CMS instead of doing a rewrite on the latest.  It was not pretty.  I don't know the details, but I feel like the contracting group quit.  We had an upgraded CMS, but with all the technical debt and mess of the old one.

Long story short, head of IT made my life a living hell.  He constantly changed his mind.  He berated our work.  He fired the two people working for me, so the project was left to me alone.  The last straw was when I was walking by the lunch room to hear him tell the president of the company that the web team wasn't doing their job and that's why the project was behind.  I was furious.  I was the only one left on the web team, and my days were filled with changes, reversals, tweaks, and all sorts of madness courtesy of the head of IT.

Quitting

I told my boss that I would be quitting once I found a new job.  I told him why.  He fussed at the head of IT and was probably the only person in the company that could get away with that without being fired (we lost our PM due to her disagreeing with the head of IT.)

It took about three months of searching, before I found the right job. And that's where I'll end this post.

Another Day

It would be good for me to post more on this blog.  I really don't expect anyone to read this.  It's out there on the web, but it is mainly for me.

Stars

I have ducks and quails.  Not too many, just eight ducks and six quails.  Every morning, I go out around 6:30 AM to let them out of their houses.  I take my wagon and head down my driveway to the family memorial garden.  Walking down my driveway, I look up at the stars.  I really only recognize the Big Dipper.  May be I will learn more constellations.  Looking up at the stars fills me with awe and makes me fill so insignificant at the same time.  I'm lucky that I live somewhere where I can see the stars and am not too affected by light pollution.

It's a lovely walk, even though there are days that I just don't want to do it anymore.  I get to the garden and start pulling weeds.  I get a wagon-full to feed my ducks some fresh greens.

I walk back over, feed them, and start cleaning their house.

At night, I go out around 7:45 PM to get their feed and water set up, then put them up for the night.  Sometimes, I sit by the quail house and look up at those stars again.  Such beautiful lights in the sky.

Long Time

Hopefully, I will get back to posting here.  Basically, a post for myself.  May be a sanity check, cathartic writing or still hoping to fix myself.

My dad is dead.  He had heart surgery May 14th, 2020 to replace a leaky valve.  He was rated in the top 99% for survivability.  Surgery went well, but as they were closing up, things went wrong.  In short, the aorta shredded and they fought to save him (40%).  They did.  Then he had one complication after another:  kidney failure, fungal lung infection, steel sutures rejected, bone infection, bacterial lung infection.  He languished for five months in different hospitals with them all telling us that he was getting better.  He was a strong, healthy man before surgery, and they completely broke him.  We did finally get him home for one day.  My mother caressed his head, and I held his hand as he took his last breath.  His grand daughters and daughter-in-laws got to say their goodbyes.

Worse things have happened to better people.

I do think that my dad was a good person.  Not perfect, but good.  As sad as I am, I do know that there is still suffering out in the world, and bad things do happen.

"I would not do anything to hurt my family.  I am spent.  I have lost my glasses, my voice, Hope."

I found the above in his email drafts (I did correct the typos).  It was to go to me and was dated June 27th.  I wish that he would have sent it.

If anything positive has come from this, is that I pray every night for the people that I know that need it (coworkers, friends, relatives, etc.)  I can't say that I am religious, but the book, The Healing Power of Pray had an impact on me.  It doesn't matter who you pray to (whatever fits your beliefs), but know that the prayers do have an effect.  Yes, my father is still dead, but that is for another discussion.  My brother's dead, too. And many other relatives have gone, some naturally, some tragically.  But I still believe.