Losing Dad

My dad is dying.

My dad, Don Cassidy, the man who has been my mentor, biggest fan, perpetual understander and social interpreter, unconditional support system, is decaying, losing his mind, losing himself in the most profound way. He's definitely dying. He has 4 children and we are all suffering through this, something many people have to go through. It is something totally unfamiliar to us, something foreign and difficult to imagine and understand.

Well, let's face it, he's always been a little odd.

He used to offer my friends vitamin E that he would pull out of his shirt pocket. Vitamin E was the greatest thing.  It was a cure-all. It was essential for your insides and you could also open up the capsule and put it on wounds.

Then there was vitamin C,  Then zinc, then echinacea, then water filters - he was into those for a long time. Then it was Amazon Herbs. And I feel like I'm missing a bunch of others.

When Don Cassidy was sold on a product, he was that product's greatest salesman. He got into knock-off Rolex watches - which were just as good as the real ones! Nevermind that at 13 years old I had no idea what a Rolex watch was - or cared - and as a super-introvert was mortified at the prospect of being asked to try to sell them to anyone, let alone the few friends I had who may or may not have known what a rolex was and certainly didn't have money or inclination to buy one! Frankly, I would rather have died than try to sell anyone anything!

Dad didn't understand my reluctance. My brother was more open to capitalistic ventures; my two sisters were too young to be expected to participate - or be embarrassed. Lucky them.

Dad was a treasure-hunter. he liked to hunt for agates - in piles of rocks. So we spent a good part of our Saturdays with him searching for agates in piles of granite or limestone or something. I'm not sure how he found these places. It was kind of fun. We also hunted for arrowheads in fields, maybe cornfields. Sometimes we even found some.

We searched for geodes too. I liked those, but it was kind-of weird spending the day looking for rocks

Other Saturdays - and I hated these days - he would take us to the bank and buy rolls of half dollars. Then he would go through them and pull out any silver half dollars to keep, then exchange the reject half dollars for more rolls of half dollars. I can't even express how contemptible I found this activity. And yet we did it week after week.

I moved in with Dad when I turned 17 because I could no longer bear to live with my mother. It was the lesser of two unbearables. He was so happy to be living with a family member again. My parents had divorced - un-amicably - when I, the oldest of 4, was only 8. Also, his father had disappeared when he was only 9, and he and his sister had been sent by their mother to live with relatives for several years after that.. He sorely wanted a loving, stable family that he had only briefly.

Dad was very accepting of me in ways that my mother wasn't. Still,  he was just kind of pushy about his agenda and really didn't appreciate my temperament and comfort level at all.

I found it very disturbing and strange that he would be in his bedroom counting piles of silver coins and talking about saving gold and silver. At some point I came to connect his behavior with that of Willy Loman's, the main character in Death of a Salesman. He became in some ways a tragic, pathetic figure to me.

And yet, Dad was always my champion. I had perpetual emotional breakdowns and challenges, and unbeknownst to anyone at the time (college and before) I had serious mental issues. It's taken decades to understand that I have depression, OCD, and most devastatingly, anxiety - social anxiety in particular. Dad was always there to coach me through the panic attacks. He had a calming demeanor and a positive view on the intentions and actions of others.

Through everything, dad has always been the best counselor, the mentor with unconditional love and acceptance. In spite of his idiosyncrasies he was always there for each of us and each of us knew we were the most important things in his life.

Now dad is no more. He is not himself. At least dad has lost who he has come to be, grown to be, and evolved into. He is no longer an intellectual or a man of God, or a kind, tender-hearted man who is always polite and gracious and intuitive. He has lost his beautiful handwriting forever and cannot even print a word. I'm not sure he even retains the concept of writing.

My father was funny and clever and good-natured most of the time with just an odd dash of conspiracy theory. He had many funny jokes he told his kids, his friends, his parishioners.

I've hardly ever seen him out of dress pants, a nice shirt, dress shoes and a hat. Now, my sister-in-law comes into his room to find him sitting in a diaper and t-shirt asking her, "Are you here to hurt me?"

I know those Christians like to say, "God works in mysterious ways." Well, it is a cruel turn to take away the mind of a man who has so passionately put his faith in a God - more passion than vitamin supplements, water filters and fake Rolex watches combined - so that he has no communication with a God that has promised him everlasting life for believing in him. He has no memory of or trace of the grace with which he has lived his life, accepting everyone, trying to understand everyone, spreading love and understanding, albeit in unique and possibly neurotic ways. How is it that he can have a dementia that erases everything, every notion and memory and value to help him move gracefully into the next life or dimension or consciousness?

I have always been skeptical of religion or any other entity that tells you to believe blindly or risk death. Always sounded like a con to me. I used to question dad about the bible and the teachings of Jesus, and the answers just never rang true to me. It all sounded like a desperate fairy tale that frightened people made up and believed to make themselves feel ok about having to die.

It's really a frightening thing to see someone you love - someone who has been your rock - come to a diminished state of no return. There is no chance I will ever interact with my dad again the way I always have before. I can't charm him, I can't joke with him, I can't argue or debate with him the same way ever again.

We won't ever talk about whole sprouted grains and organic avocadoes again. We won't reminisce about my first car, a '66 Mustang, he talked me into getting or how he used to get ridiculously sentimental when we watched Mash together when we lived together (ugh!).

We probably won't ever talk about how Marti Herdegan was our favorite girlfriend of his and how he, unfortunately, didn't deserve her. We won't talk about his lovely but neglectful mother, his tragic father, or his beloved grandfather ever, ever, again. Or his sister, Joyce, who died before he did, whom I loved and who really had a disparaging opinion of him. Not sure whether he realized that or not.

We probably won't ever reminisce about Cape Cod again. It is the one place where we were all together, where we were happy, where we returned again and again and felt like that was our true home. We won't talk about blue crabs, blueberries, bayberries, Cranberry glass, Sandwich glass, jellyfish, quahogs, Waquoit Bay, the Little Congregational Church on the side of the road, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. My happy place.

It's over. We're just waiting for it to be the end. But we worry about ourselves. Will we turn out the same way? Will our ends be sad, or lonely, or tragic? Will the 4 of us be able to stick together? How will it be with Mom?

I don't know about a god, but I believe in poetry. I believe in foreshadowing and themes and motifs, and pulling everything together in the end- whether fortunate or tragic - into a meaningful story.

So, I am, and we all are, going to be among those whose parent has died. Soon. We can't stop it, so we just want to do everything right that we can - so we don't have regrets later. So we can do everything to make the end of dad's life meaningful. So that we can get to that point where we can just cry. And then somehow move on.