full circle
So I've had this post brewing for a long time, for a week at least, but I didn't really know how to talk about it. So I'll just say it.
For a long time, from when we were kids up until adulthood, my sister and I thought of our parents as unshakeable rocks, people who loved each other and were secure in their relationship. Mom and Dad. They were always the people on the block other people would turn to with problems -- the people who would host neighborhood parties, the people who never showed an iota of anything going wrong, because nothing was ever wrong. True, they squabbled occaisonally or they got a little busy and snippy, but that was because they were both junior college teachers, tasked with teaching junior college students who couldn't care less.
You see where I'm going with this.
They were married in 1967 before a justice of the peace in London, and it was in 1996, after I'd taken the bar exam for the first and last time, that I finally found out the truth about everything between them. That they'd immediately started having problems after I was born, and when my sister came along two years later, the problems got worse. That they'd gone to see marriage counselors, in secret, while my sister and I were in junior high school. That they'd turned in Oscar-worthy performances for years on end, never fighting in front of my sister and me, keeping up the grand appearance of being the safe and secure couple we always knew they were. But then, in 1996, they finally divorced, true to form, in secret. They told my sister, but didn't tell me because I was deep into studying for and taking the bar. It drove my sister crazy not being able to tell me.
One day in autumn, my mom came up with my sister and told me the awful truth. Dad was living in an apartment across town. They were splitting up. It was all a front.
The weeks after that were hell, particularly Christmas. Christmas was always a giant production for our family, maybe for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons, but both my sister and I made out like bandits on guilt presents, while both of us wanted to scream from the emptiness life had forced us to deal with: I got a new computer. She got outfit after outfit. A friend at the time said: "The only thing missing was a car with a vanity plate saying: IMSORRY."
Since the light had finally been turned on in our secrets & lies family, other things became known: my mom had Parkinson's and had been concealing that fact for some time as well, but couldn't conceal it anymore as the symptoms had worsened.
And so, for some time, that was the wound that healed over time: while divorced, Mom lived in the old house while Dad lived in an apartment across town. Mom had Parkinson's and occasionally prevailed upon my dad to take her to UCLA to get checked out. Dad eventually got a girlfriend -- someone around his own age -- but it didn't last very long, I don't think. Mom's condition got worse, but she stubbornly clung to being as independent as she could be in a house that wasn't exactly geared for her. After the family dog died, she adopted two kittens she adored and kept outside. Dad became the best divorced husband anyone had ever heard of: he did fix-up jobs. He did occasional yard work when Mom's hired gardener skipped things. He checked up on her when the symptoms worsened.
Then, it seemed, the bottom fell out.
One of Mom's cats got run over in the street.
Mom's spine started to unravel, requiring a back operation and putting her in lots and lots of pain.
We were unsure of just how Mom would get through all this. One way or another, everything that we'd all been thinking about, every issue that we'd been avoiding until now, would have to be resolved -- in the open.
The operation itself went off without a hitch, and the doctors referred her to a hospice where she'd get rehab under Medicare, after she'd recuperated enough under the hospital's care. At least she wasn't in any more pain.
However, the modern miracle of the American health care system being what it is, the hospice wouldn't take her because she was doing too well for them to admit her -- since Medicare is dwindling away faster and faster under the Republicans' neglect/malice/corruption, patients on Medicare are being turned away more and more as a matter of routine than anything else.
So she would have to have a home health aide, and we would have to find someplace where she would feel comfortable. My sister, who had been with my mom ever since she first needed back surgery, stepped into overdrive and found other hospices, all the while filing three articles and dealing with her editor.
It was then, like the unshakeable rock in the storm we always knew he was, that my dad spoke up.
"I'll move in."
We weren't sure he really understood what he was saying, or what we thought he was saying, at first. My mom actually said she could think of no one better to take care of her: "He's strong -- he can pick me up when I fall down." He meant what he said: he gave his apartment manager notice and then set about moving back into the old house.
My parents are now in the process of each getting rid of half the stuff they've accumulated over their ten years of separation: my dad has something like five computers, tons of CDs and books, while my mom has what can charitably be called tchochkes. They're considering putting air conditioning in the old workshop (a very large structure they built together, out of cinder blocks and rebar back in the day) so that my dad can house all of his books and electronic equipment -- maybe turn it into an office for him. They'll sleep in separate beds, but we'll put in an intercom system between their rooms so Mom can buzz him if something bad happens. A home health aide visits once a week to see everything's OK.
My mom said: "Someday, you can tell your children about your crazy parents."
It's odd: that a complete failure of the healthcare system brought our family to this -- that all the secrets and lies in our family are gone, and that my son will have both his grandparents under one roof on Christmas. That my parents, though the very flawed people they always were, have showed their heroism under pressure one more time.
They're not crazy; they just do things their way.