Nessun Dorma

Nessun Dorma, "none shall sleep."  It was my dad's favorite, when done by Pavarotti.  It's one of the things that will always remind me of him in such a good way.  He wept whenever he heard it, and now I do as well.  He passed away on January 7.  I've been wanting to write about him since it happened, but quite frankly I didn't know where to begin, what to say, how to pay tribute.  I'm not sure this will end up being a tribute but I hope you can read the love I had for this man despite some very shaky years.

In those shaky years it was very apparent that my dad and I could not relate to each other.  He didn't understand me and I didn't understand him.  He had good camaraderie with my brothers and my sister because they all loved sports.  Me, not so much.  I guess maybe I was a little resentful of that, mainly because my mom used to say things like, "learn to like sports and you will have a bond with him."  Well why couldn't he learn to love something that I was into and bond with me?  It's that stubbornness that I inherited from him I guess.  So growing up I really didn't have much of a relationship with my dad.  In fact, it wasn't until after I moved out at 21 that I even really remember having many conversations with him.  When I came back home to do laundry or visit or have dinner, we talked.  Actual conversations.  We found common ground.  We both loved nature shows.  We both dreamed of going to Alaska.  He never did, but I hope I get to someday, for both of us.  And when I was 30, I got my very first "I love you" from him.

I guess when someone passes away you aren't supposed to talk about the bad times.  When my brother spoke at the funeral, he spoke of family vacations, sports, and Saturday morning breakfasts my dad used to make for all of us kids.  And those are good memories.  But the truth is there are a lot more bad memories than there are good.  I'll leave those for another time though, because the fact is he's gone and I miss him.  So instead I'll tell you about his last day.

My dad was ill, and he had been for a long time.  He had lost a leg to diabetes seven years ago, and while recuperating from that surgery, he had a stroke.  The stroke affected his ability to speak clearly.  He knew what he was trying to say, but he often was garbled in his speech and no amount of therapy seemed to help.  In addition, his amputation was so far up he had difficulty ever walking again even with a prosthetic.  He did, with the help of a walker, but it was difficult and he spent a lot of time in and out of rehab.  In addition to all this, he had already had atrial fibrillation, or a-fib, an irregular heartbeat, and received a pacemaker/defibrillator several years ago to treat this.  So yeah, he wasn't in good shape.

Since I haven't worked in forever and still can't seem to find a job, I was looked to often to help out with him.  I was glad to do it, most of the time.  My mother could not handle him on her own all the time.  We went to many doctors, many hospitals, over the years.  It seemed to be never ending.  It was frustrating to say the least, most of the time because as years passed he got less and less interested in doing much to help himself.  No amount of talking to him, reasoning with him, telling him how it was, didn't help.  And it became apparent that he would have to go into a nursing home.  My mom fought us on it, but there was really no other way.  He was no longer walking at all and at 82, my mother couldn't care for him herself anymore.

At the time, he was in rehab and they were trying to help him walk.  It wasn't going well at all.  He had a toe amputated off his remaining foot and since then he didn't want to get up at all.  He was in bed, in rehab for 3 months when we got the call saying he was unresponsive.  Off we went back to the hospital to meet him in the ER.  My mom was beside herself but I have grown accustomed to being solid, the rock, the strong one and I told her that dad has nine lives.  And it was true.  There had been several times over the years when I thought he was not going to make it.  The most recent was Christmas, when he was in the hospital with pneumonia and a staph infection.  But he bounced back, just like he always had.  I told my mom that when we got to the ER he'd be sitting up in bed and saying, "what took you so long to get here??"  And you know, it was almost like that.  He was sitting up, he was talking.  He was not right, and we could see that, but he was making sense mostly, talking sports with my brother.  As the doctors came and went, we were told very little but informed they would be admitting him to ICU.  At this time they weren't sure but they thought he may have had a heart attack.  Dad was looking tired so mom told him to go to sleep if he wanted to since we didn't know how long it would take to get him into a room.  Soon after, he did sleep and we decided to go grab a quick bite to eat, not knowing how long we would be at the hospital.

Things felt different, in retrospect, but at the time, we were feeling it was business as usual.  When we got back to the ER, he was still there, still sleeping.  And my aunt and uncle (dad's brother) had arrived.  The nurse tried to wake him at this point and was unable to.   He was still breathing though and the room up in ICU was ready.  While they were moving him I went to the ER parking lot and moved my car to the hospital lot.  It's winter and cold and I figured it would be a shorter walk when we left the hospital.  When I got up to ICU, my family was still in the waiting room but my mom was crying and my aunt was comforting her.  What did I miss??  The ICU doctor had come out while the nurses were getting dad settled and he said he saw very little hope for him and there was nothing they could do.  Dad had a DNR and all they could do for him was keep him comfortable.  Was this really happening?  This moment that I had been preparing myself for for years, was it really here?  I wasn't prepared at all.

It was about 6 pm, and my brother and I took turns calling my sister and my other brother who live out of state, updating them on what was happening.  My sister had called our aunt (dad's sister) to tell her what was going on and then my aunt phoned me and asked me if I thought she should come to the hospital. I told her yes, so she and her husband came.

Now we are waiting.  Waiting for him to die and it feels strange.  He is unconscious the whole time and unaware of what is happening and that's a blessing.  My mom wanted a priest from her church to come and administer Last Rights, so I called and before I could leave a message my sister phoned me.  So after talking to her I asked her to call the church back for me and ask a priest to come.  She did, and the priest called me not even five minutes later to say he was on his way.  He said prayers and anointed him and it was all quite beautiful.

The nurses there were extremely kind and brought us a cart with coffee, sodas, cookies and other snacks.  And chairs.   ICU rooms don't have chairs for visitors because they don't want visitors to stay in the ICU long.  But they brought us, all seven of us, chairs.  And we sat, or paced.  Cried, and talked.  Even had some laughs.  For instance, before we got chairs, my uncle broke down crying and sat down on the toilet.  It's a toilet in the room, with a big pad over it to make it look like a chair.  My mother went to him to comfort him and as she leaned down to hug him, she leaned up against the flusher and WOOSH! She flushed the toilet!   Yes, we did all laugh.  And it felt good because we were all so wound up and nervous.

Another moment was when the priest left.  He was a very young, very handsome priest.  And when he left I turned to my mom and I said, "he's young!"   She said yes, he was one of the newer priests at her church.  I told my family, "we had a name for priests like him when I was in school…. Fr. WhatAWaste!"  And we laughed again.  You need those moments because staring at my dad and counting how long it is between breaths can drive you mad.  So we had those moments, and others as we talked and reminisced and told stories about him.  And then, at 10:10 pm, all was silent.  He was gone.  It took about 6 hours from the time he went to sleep for him to stop breathing.  A blessing really. The doctor came in and declared him gone, and we said our goodbyes.  Now we had to go home and go about the task of getting on with life.  I spent that night with my mom.  I just couldn't leave her alone.  She lost the man she'd spent 57 years with.  It was going to hit her, and hit her hard at some point.  So I stayed.   Again being the rock.  Holding in my tears, holding in my sorrow, so she could have hers.  I've been doing it for so long I don't really know how not to.

I miss him.  But the truth is, I've missed him for years.   He hasn't been the guy I knew for quite some time.  He stopped caring about anything.  He stopped wanting to do anything.  He existed but had very little quality of life these past few years.  So I'm glad he's free.  And hope wherever he is, he found his joy again.  Love you forever dad.  xoxo

To Write or Not to Write

How much ego does one have to have to write about themselves?  I never thought of myself as necessarily egomaniacal, but on the other hand sometimes I think I'm pretty cool.  I'm not sure that means I have a big ego though because just when I start to think "yeah I'm alright," I get a big case of self conscious or someone knocks me back to reality.  It could be anyone, it could be on purpose, it could be completely accidental.  And whenever it happens, I think of something my dad said to me once.  I went to my parents house after work that day.   I felt like a million bucks.  I loved my outfit, I loved my hair, I felt so good and it showed.  When I was leaving work that day and walking to my car a man stopped me and said, "excuse me, but are you a model?"  And I thought I already felt good!   Validated.  It was fantastic.  Then I got to my parents house and, still reveling in how good I felt I told them what the man said to me.  My dad's response, in complete seriousness was, "Was he blind?"  That's all it took to undo the good feeling I had all day.

Three words.  That's all it took.   It happens fast, that trip from the top of the world to the bottom of the shit pile.  Maybe a few words like my dad's do it.  Maybe an email complaint I get because someone doesn't agree with my opinion.   Maybe a sideways glance in the mirror at the wrong angle.  And then I wonder, why would anyone want to read anything I have to say?  Who the fuck am I?  What makes my stories any more interesting than anyone else's?   Well, maybe they aren't.  But there is one thing I always am when I write... true to me.  If you haven't liked a post or more, that's OK.  I can only be true to me.  I learned a long time ago that you cannot please everyone so don't even try.  And I don't.  Instead I keep these words in mind that someone I care about told me, "If you write it, you own it.  It's yours."  Once I do that, it's out there, no going back, no regrets.  I own it, for better or for worse.

And so again I wonder, why am I writing this blog?  When I started it I was inspired by several things.  One was friends illness that woke me up to the fact that at any time your life can change drastically without warning.  If that happened to me, what's my legacy?  And now that I think about that again, is a blog with my goofy stories a legacy?  I guess it is, in some odd way.   My other inspiration was a friend with a writing talent that moves me and evokes feelings in me when I read something he wrote.  Moved in a good way, or in a bad way, it doesn't matter.  Being moved does.  When someone can do that with written word, it's pretty special.  I didn't fancy that I could do that, but I wanted to try.  And something really amazing happened.  I love what I'm doing here.  I love my voice.  I love what I have to say.  I love having a place to say it.  I hope you do too.  And I thank those two special people for inspiring me in two completely different ways.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~ Dr. Seuss

Cleveland Hopkins Continental Hell

Back in 2007, when my dad was in Florida and sick, I had to fly back and forth several times.  During those times, I had my worst airport experience and my best.  This blog is about the worst.  I had been in Florida for about a week or so already.  When I went, I didn't know how sick he was, how long he'd have to stay in the hospital, how long I'd be there, nothing.   Here in Ohio, my parents next door neighbor works for Continental so I was able to get a cheap fair via a buddy pass.  In case you don't know what that is, employees of the airline can get friends/family great deals on flights, but you have to fly stand by.  Most of the time, it's not a problem.  You also have to dress a certain way if you have a buddy pass.  Why this is I have no clue since no one on the flight knows you're on a buddy pass unless you tell them.  And seriously, are you going to chat up the person next to you by saying, "how much did you say you paid for this flight?  $500?  Wow dude, sucks to be you, I only paid $80."  But yeah, they have a dress code and Neighbor told me all I had to do was not wear shorts.  Everything else was fine.  So after my dad had the surgery that amputated his leg from just below the knee down and then went to rehab, I decided to go home and take care of some things like getting myself and my mom more clothes.  I had not brought much and even though she had, she didn't expect to be there as long as she was either. 

At about 1:30 am the morning of my flight back to Florida, my brother who lives there called me to tell me my dad had a stroke.  I was relieved I was already scheduled to go back, but scared out of my mind that things had taken such a turn.  Dressed in jeans, a plain black t-shirt and my Italia hoodie, I'm all set to go back.  Bags checked, carry on in hand, now I just have to wait.  Since I'm flying stand by, I have to wait while they make sure the plane isn't overbooked.  Eventually I'll get a boarding pass if all goes well.   I check in with Continental employee Daisy, who is anything but.  She gave me the up and down look and then asked me who gave me the buddy pass.  I told her and she asked me if Neighbor told me about the dress code.  I told her that he told me not to wear shorts.  Daisy prints something off and then asks me to come with her to the corridor where she proceeds to tell me that hoodies and t-shirts are not allowed and that she's going to have to consider if I can fly that day, dressed how I am.

Now I'm just staring at her dumbfounded while she continues to give me the disapproving glare.  You'd think I was a smelly hobo who just came in from the alley and is taking a shower in the public restroom!  Finally I said, "look... my father had a stroke last night, I have to get on that plane."   She sees that I have carry on in my hand and asks me if I have any clothes in it.  I said I did, but they were my mother's and about 2 sizes smaller than me.  Daisy tells me that I will need to find something in there more suitable than what I'm wearing and that she's going to report Neighbor for not telling me what I should wear.  I simultaneously want to hack her to bits with a daisy chainsaw and start to cry hysterically.  Up until this point, I was pretty calm about my father's stroke and all that was going on.  But now, this cold unfeeling bitch who is apparently offended that I'm wearing a fucking t-shirt is going to hinder me from getting back to Florida.  I call Neighbor and tell him what's happening and he can hardly understand me because I'm so hysterical.  I'm starting to draw attention but the floodgate has been opened and I cannot stop.  Neighbor tells me to do the best I can, and then *gasp* apologize to Daisy for the way I'm dressed.  He can't be serious?  But his job is on the line and I have to suck it up for him.

Some extremely wonderful and kind strangers came over to me to see if they could help.  Somehow through my hysteria, they got the gist of what was going on and were pretty appalled by it.  They took me to the bathroom, helped me look through the carry on and find something to change into.  It was tight, and small but I got it on, and they assured me I looked fine.  I wish I knew the names of those angels.  Still crying but less hysterical, I made my way back over to the counter and asked Stinkweed if what I was wearing was OK.  She smiled and said it was much better and handed me my boarding pass.  I took a deep breath and apologized to the bitch.  That was tough.

Tears still flowing, because like I said, the floodgate had opened and there was no stopping it, my row was called and as I made my way to the gate, who do I see collecting boarding passes but that bitch!  Can you even believe that she had the audacity to hug me after taking my boarding pass and telling me she hoped everything would be OK?  Can you even stand it!?   I should have kicked her in the tits right then and there.

So, I'm on the plane.  Still blubbering but trying desperately to stop.   I'm on an aisle seat, wing row so lots of leg room.  That means everyone around me, to my right and to my left, were men.  And not one of them would look at the crazy crying woman on the aisle, let alone offer me a word of comfort.  Then a very very tall man was seated at the window seat in the aisle in front of me and was immediately uncomfortable.  His knees were practically at his ears!   He called a flight attendant over and asked if he could be moved.  She told him she was very sorry but the plane was full.  I seized the moment to tell the flight attendant that he could have my seat and the very grateful man switched with me.  Ahhh now I'm at a window seat and I can just hide my head in the window, not talk to anyone and just cry my way to Florida without really bothering anyone.  And that's exactly what I did.

Luckily Neighbor did not get fired, nor did he even receive any kind of reprimand.  I do however hope that Daisy was fired for her disgusting treatment of someone who was clearly in distress.

Realizing My Worth

Throughout the years, there have been times in my life when I have felt like nothing.  Like next to nothing.  Could it be because I had no relationship with my father until I was in my late 20's?  Could it be a boyfriend who made me feel that way?  Could it be betrayal by a trusted friend?  I always wonder, what did I do wrong?  What did I do that made you not want to be around me?   What did I do that made you break up with me?  What did I do that drove you to stab me in the heart? When you feel like that, it doesn't really matter what other people say to reassure you.  You feel how you feel and only the person who makes you feel that way can really change it.  Most of the time, they don't even know they are doing it so you're kind of fucked. 

When I was a kid, I probably didn't realize that dad's talked to their kids, played ball, helped with homework, whatever.  It wasn't until I got a little older that it really clicked that something was wrong here.  And by the time I realized it, I was used to it and I knew it was the booze.  And yet, there is still that piece of insecurity that totally fucks with your head.  It wasn't until two years ago that my worth to my father slapped me in the face.

He was ill.  Isn't that the biggest piece of cliche bullshit?  An illness pulls a family together.  But that's what happened.  He was ill, while on vacation in Florida visiting my sister.  When it became apparent this was not minor, my brother and I hopped a plane to FL.  I ended up staying a total of eight weeks (going home once for a couple days to get more clothes and take care of my life), while my father endured four surgeries ultimately resulting in the amputation of his right leg at mid-thigh, due to complications of diabetes.  And while recovering, he suffered a stroke.   The stroke was minor, thankfully and really only affected his ability to speak.  He can speak, but very often he's garbled.  He can't articulate what he wants to say very easily anymore.

As time went on, he did start to improve and I had to get back to my life.  One day we were alone in his hospital room, my mom had gone out to make a phone call.  So we were talking and I said to him, "you know, you're starting to get better, you know what that means?"   He shrugged.  I said, "It means I'm going to be going home."  Immediately my father burst into tears the likes of which I had never seen in my life.  I have never ever seen my father cry, let alone the sobbing cries he was doing now.  He didn't cry when his own father and mother passed away.  He didn't cry when the doctors told him his leg was coming off.  He didn't cry after he had a stroke.  He cried because I was going home and leaving him.  In a panic, I called my mother back in and she soothed him as I went out in the hall to freak out.

Then the more I thought about it, the more I thought it had nothing to do with me at all.  It was a culmination of everything he was feeling about his situation and somehow, someway it came out at that time.  This is where the self doubt, the thinking I'm shit, the idea that I've always been nothing, comes back to haunt me.  It couldn't be about me.  Why would it be?  So I was cool with it, it's business as usual.

And then, several days later when I am actually going home I asked for my mom and my sister to give me a few minutes alone with him to say goodbye.  It's not like we were never going to see each other again.  I was going home to make my home livable for him.  He and my mother were moving into my house while he continued to recover.  They would be coming home in a few weeks.  So I went into his room to say good bye and he knew.  He knew why I asked everyone to leave, and he laid their on his bed, shaking his head "no."  Did he not want to hear it?  Did he not want to say goodbye?  Did he not want me to go?  I told him I had to go, I had to get things ready and I would be at the airport waiting for him when he got home.  And it happened again.  That violent burst of tears as he grabbed my hand.  This time, I couldn't talk myself out of what I mean to him.  I felt it wash over me.  The gratitude he felt for my being there for him and my mother and taking control of the situation and the doctors.  The love, yes love, that I finally truly felt.  It only took 42 years, but it'll last me a lifetime.

Punk Rock Saved Me

One of my most memorable defining moments happened on January 26, 1980.  I had just turned 14.  I was up late, watching SNL.  In those days, everyone watched SNL.  It was the '79/'80 season, before the show went to hell and almost got canceled. Terri Garr was the host.  The B 52's were the musical guest.  The B fucking 52's!   This was so new to me.  It was my first exposure (other than my sister's insane love for David Bowie) that I had to anything remotely interesting musically.  My brothers were listening to Boston and Foreigner and other shit like that.  My friends were listening to Andy Gibb and the Bee Gee's.  But this, this was exciting and strange and good and weird and so many things.  They performed twice that night, the classic Rock Lobster and Dance This Mess Around.  I was mesmerized by them.  And in the course of that 90 minute show,  my life completely changed.

Why did my life need to change?  Oh it did.  Something had to change.  It's 1980.  I have zero relationship with my father.  I sometimes wonder if he knows of my existence.  He never speaks to me.  Never.  It had probably been years by this time since he had spoken to me.  It will be many more years until he does.  Every day he comes home from work so fucking drunk he can hardly walk.  He stinks of beer.  He falls asleep at the dinner table.  My mom screams at him until he goes to bed, and the next day we do it all over again.  There's my mom again, dealing with it so that we wouldn't be without a father, she wouldn't be alone.   I can't imagine what it was like for her then.  Worse than it was for me and my brothers and sister, no doubt.

My transformation was kind of slow, but steady.  The B 52's lead me to more new and more exciting music with each passing day.  It was soon after that I discovered more and more music... Adam and the Ants, The Go Go's, Billy Idol, more and more and more.  I wanted more, I got more and with my new love, I lost every friend I had.  They didn't like the music, they didn't like the look, they didn't like the attitude I was now sporting.  Well fuck them!  I finally found me and I liked it and I wasn't turning back into just another clone at my Catholic school.  I found new friends, friends who had similar revelations.  And we found more and more music.  By 1984 we were going to so many shows, it was almost a weekly occurrence.  We still had our beloved Adam Ant and Billy Idol, but now we had The Ramones, Dead Kennedy's, the Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, Black Flag (have you ever seen Henry Rollins live in any way?  He's fucking genius).  It was intense and wonderful.  Everything was new and amazing.  Music saved my soul.  Music took me away.  Music made me happy again.  Thank you B 52's.


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