Becoming an Orphan at 60

 

2021 was not kind to a lot of people around the world. Just when we thought it was safe to go out more with or without our masks first, my father passed away after losing the fight with Leukemia in January. He did not want to be isolated in the hospital with no visitors, like so many patients were during the previous year. Plus, the entire medical community was just barely hanging on themselves, after being driven to the brink of exhaustion and really close to insanity. There just wasn’t enough personnel to help patients find their strength or even their will to live. There were very limited hospice nurses for home visits either. We had to rely on family members to stay with him, keep him clean, and administer his meds to help ease his passage. His wife’s daughters were such as help during this time as they both had a background in the medical fields. 

After his passing, there was the inevitable in-fighting about what would happen to his body. His current wife took over all of that. There wasn’t going to be a funeral anyway as dad was never really prepared for any kind of contingency. All of his hard work throughout his lifetime, his battles with alcohol, and womanizing pretty much meant that he would be cremated. His ashes were never shared. 

My mother slowly deteriorated throughout the year. She was never one to get out and exercise or just go for a walk. It was her sedentary life, her refusal to give up smoking and finally being caged at my brother's place with no hope of escaping his back-biting, passive-aggressive female partner that I truly believed led to her series of strokes. 

What led to this was a series of unfortunate events including our RV engine was blown, the floor and ceiling developed a leak and COVID HIT. We had to leave our workamping position and ended up scraping the RV. I was unable to find a job anywhere. No one really could back then. We were just surviving on her social security again but without the added benefit of a fresh place to stay at every couple of months.  I truly believed she just gave up. She had several strokes during the month of November. We had to bring her to the emergency room ourselves. They sent her home without any kind of assessment because it was the weekend and their radiology department was limited.  

We had her taken in via rescue a few days later after having fallen out of bed and was we were unable to get her back up.  My mother was not a tall woman but she was wide, not an easy person to move on my own or even with my skinny brother's help. They sent her home again with orders for home health visits.When she was unable to move at all and I was unable to care for her physical needs (I too am not in good physical shape with degenerative arthritis eating away at the bones in my spine.) and it was a week before the home health nurse came for a visit. She immediately ordered another hospital transport to the local hospital (they place who sent her home while she could still talk) but  was finally moved over to Shands in Gainesville for proper testing and diagnosis. Yes, she had a series of strokes and, no she would not recover. The medical profession had let us down again.

They moved my mother back to Live Oak to the Hospice here. This is a singular facility with very few patients and caring nurses who cleaned her up well, put her in comfortable clothing and allowed the family members to stay with her while they pumped her with morphine. I made mixed tape of her favorite songs and played those the first night. I didn't get much sleep and mom did rally, like you hear about prior to her passing. My sister came the next day to give me a chance to go back to my brothers grab a shower and a nap. When I woke up my sister called to say our mother was gone. Back to the Hospice where I sat with my mom while we waiting for the funeral home to come get her. My mom, at least, had a small policy she had been paying on for years. It paid for her cremation and the family get-together we were finally able to have for both of my parents the following June. 

In December of the same year, without knowing that her daughter has passed before her, my grandmother at the age of 98 passed away as well. She had already done a stint in hospice earlier in the year and I think that was when mom had her first mini-stroke. We had driven all the way to Fernandina Beach to visit Granny in Hospice. We talked, we laughed, she told stories. We were having such a good time the nurse came in and asked us to quiet down a bit. My Grandmother rallied and was sent home the next day. My mother, on the other hand, as we were getting into the car to leave, she said her right leg was numb. Perhaps, if I had insisted that she get seen then she might have lasted a bit longer. Of course, my grandmother had paid for her funeral expense a few years before she passed. She told her home that she had lived in for over 50 years and the proceeds were divided up among her remaining children. - that is a whole different story to share.

Grandmother's funeral was at the church in Fernandina Beach that she attending the last few years of her life and not at the one she attending most of her adult life. A lot of family members have had services at the Hendrick Avenue church during my life time. Which I thought was odd but her son, my uncle and his wife, whom Granny was living with the last few years of her life, wanted it that way. We all got to attend, those of us who could get there at least, and she was buried next to her husband at the Jacksonville Beach Cemetery. That had been arranged since the 1970s. 

All of this to say, that it has taken me a few years to get on with life. I was shut down and shut in for three of the last 4 years. Most of that was due to the fact we could not arrange for mom and dad's "Remembrance Day" until June of the following year. Which turned out to be have only couple of his family members and a few of mom's showing up. Very sad for living over 70 years each. It was a nice place, the Princess Prairie Preserve county park in Flagler county. We rented all of the cabins there, stayed a few says and threw some of mom's ashes in the waters she loved so much. I still have most of her in a bag in a box sitting on top of the mini fridge I have in my room. Someday, I hope to spill the rest out in streams, lakes and the Gulf where we visited during our RVing years.