12-28-07
Just an update on things going on in my side of the world.

My dad went to ER the Friday night before Christmas, so Bill and I went to Springfield to be with him at the hospital. He arrived with severe chest pains (though the ER doctor said he did not have a heart attack). His heart rate was all over the chart though, going from 40 to 140 in just a minute or two and continued this way for over an hour. It was very, very irregular. They gave him medication to get it back into a normal rhythm. He was admitted to the hospital that night and then the next day, developed what they called a mild pneumonia. They then put him on antibiotics. Because of all he went through and the fact that he eats barely enough to keep a bird alive, he became extremely weakened.

Mom called me Christmas Eve saying that Dad was going to be released, but to a nursing home. He is 96 and Mom is 87, it would be impossible for her to try to care for him at this point. We had about two to three hours to find a nursing home. Luckily, one of the best nursing homes in Springfield (Maranatha Village) had a bed open. I spent all day Christmas Eve at the hospital waiting for Dad to be released, then I drove him to the nursing home where I spent another couple of hours checking him in. I know that I need not worry about the kind of care that he'll receive there. I've only heard good things about Maranatha.

It is very strange, though, to watch someone who was so strong in my life, someone I fought with so many days when I was younger, someone who seemed to be such a "rock" in my life be a victim of the ravages of old age. I can remember when I was little, sitting on his lap, or wrapping my arms around his leg as he walked along; then as I grew older, the fights, the advice he gave, the times when he would be the go-between between my Mom and I. And now, he seems to be only a shell of his former self. Though he is in for rehab, I wonder if he will really get to go home, he is so weak. We have repeatedly encouraged him to eat so he can get strong enough to go home, but he keeps saying he isn't hungry. All he wants to do is sleep - he says he is so tired. I've been told that is a part of dying. Only time will tell.

I am going in to Springfield today to take Mom over there so that she can sign some more papers and answer more questions.

1-7-08
As I watch my 96-year-old Dad slowly deteriorate, I am surprised at all the emotions that I'm experiencing.

First, you need to understand that my Dad is first-generation German-Russian. His parents came over from the old country. His parents were part of what Wikipedia says: A substantial number of German-Russians from the Volga ethnic enclave, Russian-Poland Vistula German villages, and also from the German-Russian Black Sea Colonies, emigrated to the United States and Canada during the great wave of immigration from approximately 1880 to 1910. Many of these immigrants settled in the American Midwest states of Wisconsin, North & South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota and the Canadian western territories and provinces such as Alberta. The lure of cheap farmland, freedom, and avoidance of military conscription enticed many to migrate. Most were very successful, and contributed significantly to North America's agricultural production and ethnic heritage. This large migration ended largely with the outbreak of World War I, and subsequent rise of the Bolsheviks, and the Communist state.

He has always been a loner, so to speak. He usually worked away from home and came home on weekends. At times I enjoyed having him there, but most of the time, I just kind of dreaded when he would be home. He was a good provider - we always had what we needed, but he was very authoratative and his word was "law." There are a few fights that I'll remember always. The first was when I was six years old - I hated milk. The only way Mom could get me to drink milk was either in my cereal or in a glass with chocolate in it. I actually tried, on my own, at school to drink milk a couple of times, but it never worked - I just couldn't do it. My Dad thought that I needed to drink milk white. I would leave the table in tears and endure a spanking because I wouldn't drink white milk. To this day (age 63) I still can't stand white milk, even in cereal. I don't like ice milk or shakes either. I can eat white gravy, cottage cheese and malts and ice cream and even whipped cream with sugar in it, so even I don't understand my distaste for white milk. He finally gave up and I drank water or Koolaid at meals. Another problem we had was that we attended a very, very strict pentecostal church where "everything" was a sin. To this day, though there are probably well-meaning people associated with that denomination, I would never knowingly ever go to one. My Dad felt that he needed to enforce all their rules. He has since rethought many of those rules and saw how ignorant and stupid they were.

Actually, his main regret is his relationship with us. That tells me that he really loved us very, very much. Being of German descent, it made it very difficult to tell us. I was in my 50s before he told me that the first time he saw me, he thought I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. I was a war baby and was a year or year and a half old before he met me. Part of his problem with me was that because I was born while he was overseas, when he came home, he did not have Mom to himself. He had to share her with me and I demanded a lot of attention and time. He resented that.

I also just found out - actually only a couple of weeks ago - that he left home and was out on his own at age 13. And even before that, he had to work at home in the family business. So he never had a childhood. That was probably why he liked to go golfing, fishing or play pool almost every day of his retirement days. He was very excited when he turned 90 because golf was free.

My Dad was a strong man. He worked on all his cars using whatever was at hand. There was one car that used toilet paper rolls as an oil filter, once he used a Kotex pad or two. He used soda water to clean road grease from windshields when it was raining. Many times we'd stop at a service station where he'd look through the empty soda bottles for one that still had a little Coke or Pepsi in it. I guess it worked, because he did it a lot. He changed his own tires and he would tighten the bolts so tight that even the mechanic's garage machine had a hard time removing the bolts.

As he grew older, he mellowed and was easier to get along with. My mom has told me that he has a lot of regrets and it is very difficult for him to forgive himself, he has told me that himself. Even though each of his children has told him that it's okay and we forgive him and love him, it is difficult for him to accept. Again, though, even in his own spiritual experiences, it has been hard for him to accept God's forgivess for his past "transgressions." I can't imagine that they were all that bad, considering the everyday living of today's generations. As far as I know, he was never involved in drugs, crime or any of the things that many people go to prison for. He stopped drinking and smoking when he got "saved" back in the 50s, so I can't imagine anything that would be so bad that he can't forgive himself.

My Dad, to his credit, was a stand-up guy. He never once backed down from his beliefs, be they right or wrong. That is something I always admired about him, even though at times I didn't like it. He worked at a job he hated all his life. He was never much for unions and he faced many, many days fearing that a strike was imminent. Welfare was unheard of for him. And this was during a time when re-education for a new job was still far into the future. He was a clerk-telegrapher for a railroad company and listened to dots and dashes all day. Many of his coworkers would get irritated at him because he refused to alter time reports of when a train passed through his area late.

Since he worked for the railroad, we rode the train a lot. I remember many, many trips from Poplar Bluff to St. Louis with my Dad; and later after I left home and got to ride back and forth from St. Louis to home on his pass. The most exciting part was when he'd take me to the area where the cars connected together. There was a place between the cars where you could stand and look out with the wind blowing through your hair. It was the most exciting part of the ride. And all the more exciting because it was forbidden to passengers.

So there were good times with my Dad. I remember sitting on his lap, hugging his neck and breathing the smell of the railroad cars (they always smelled of cigars and tobacco back then). He would take us fishing and swimming occasionally, but if boys showed up at the spot, he never took us back. We went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday and Wednesday nights, and we always stopped at the local Dairy Queen for a frosted Root Beer or Root Beer float, or just an ice cream cone. There is nothing better than Root Beer in a frosted mug - you just don't get those anymore. He tried to teach me to box several times. He loved boxing and boxed in the Golden Gloves in his younger years. But during one of our "matches" I accidently hit him in the kidneys and pretty much laid him low for a couple of hours. We didn't box again after that.

This past Christmas Eve we had to put him into a nursing home (the hospital could not release him to my 87-year-old mother - there is no way she could take care of him). And I had to drive him there from the hospital. He was supposed to go in for two weeks of rehab to get well enough to go home, but it's been a steady decline since he's been there. The nursing home is one of the very nicest there is in our town. It is open for visitation 24-7. And I've been there at all hours. They call with any change in his condition.

For so many years, I had such a hard time with my Dad, and now that it's so close to his time of passing over, I find myself creating new and better memories. I am surprised at how much love I feel for him.

It is difficult to watch him decline. There are days when I visit and he looks like he's at death's door, then the next day he'll request to sit up in a wheel chair to eat. They have stopped taking him to the dining room because it seems like such an imposition on him. I talked with the doctor Friday and he was going to try a few more "gentle" things to help him in his alertness, but probably today, they will move him from a Medicare bed to a Hospice bed.

From the nurses, I understand that people from his generation are a "hardy" bunch and he may linger like this for a little while.

While I know that many others have gone through this same situation, this is new for me and I find myself to be stronger that I thought. I've been working on a memorial DVD for him, and while my husband says he could never do that, I find it to be a healing experience for me. It is a project of love and I feel very, very blessed that I have this time with him and for him.

1-10-08
Just to let you all know, Dad passed away about 24 hours ago - January 9, about 1 a.m.

He passed very peacefully in his sleep. He was not alone, the nurses and aides were taking his vitals when they noticed that he was not breathing and they then lost his pulse.

Fortunately, I was able to spend most of the day with him that day - from about 9:30 a.m. to about 8:00 p.m. with a couple of hours out to visit with Mom. I was able to talk to him and tell him how much I appreciated things that he taught me and how much I loved him. I told him it was okay to go. My brother and sister were already on their way down, and my sister and mom felt that that from their places, they could also communicate with him that it was okay to go.

It was an extreme blessing and honor to be with him on his last day, something I will always cherish.

The viewing will be this Friday at 11:00 a.m. at Gorman Scharpf Funeral Home, 1947 E Seminole, Springfield, MO 65804, and then a grave-site service at the new Veterans cemetery out on south 65.