Information I was Not Eager to Acquire

I think the master bedroom in my house is finally clean.

I am trying not to call it “my dad’s bedroom.” I’m very tired of grief. My belief is that the more I try to move forward, the better I’ll feel.

Since the beginning of the year, I have shampooed the bedroom carpet four times. I put bleach in the machine. It didn’t hurt the carpet. I thought the carpet was hopeless, but now it’s so clean I’m not afraid to walk barefoot on it or to put objects on it which I intend to pick up later with my bare hands.

Later this year, I’ll get a new carpet, but getting my dad started in the ALF was costly, and I don’t want to blow too much money in one month.

I put Murphy’s Oil Soap in warm water and used a rag to clean the wood furniture. I plan to get rid of the furniture because it got abused over the last year and because it reminds me of my dysfunctional family. Right now, though, the furniture is not hurting anything, and it will be of some use until I choose something else.

A few days back, I discovered a zipper on the cover of my dad’s mattress. I had been planning to discard the mattress (less than two years old), but when I found I could remove the cover, I decided to see if I could save it. The innards of the mattress were as fresh as the day it was made, so I filled the master bath with water, added laundry detergent and bleach, and soaked it for a long time. It did the trick. I rinsed it out and drapped it over some patio furniture for two days. I put it under a ceiling fan to dry it out.

Shoving a 14″ memory foam mattress into a damp cover is a real adventure, but I got it done, and now I don’t have to take the mattress to the dump. Unfortunately, back when I thought the cover could not be removed, I ordered a replacement, so now I have two memory foam mattresses. I guess this is a good opportunity to get rid of my own 1994 mattress!

His pillows already went to the dump. I think I’m going to give his sheets and pillowcases away. I don’t think anyone would want to use them, but my understanding is that Goodwill likes fabrics regardless of condition. There is a market for the fiber. I could keep a few things for use as dropcloths and so on.

When I go in his…the master bedroom now, all I smell is pine oil, Murphy’s Oil Soap, and bleach. I can’t even smell my dad. People’s bedrooms have a smell even when they’re not demented and being cared for by others. Their clothes, if nothing else, smell like them. I won’t smell that fragrance any more. I won’t smell the familiar odor of soap and shaving cream after he gets up.

He spent most of his time in the living room, so I shampooed the rugs in there. I mopped the floor. I’ve already dusted and cleaned the furniture. I’ll have to go back over it. I was somewhat lazy about cleaning his living area while he lived here. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time cleaning up areas that were somewhat gross to deal with. I should have done better. When you let your cleaning standards go, you generally have to clean things more than once to get things back up to snuff.

Yesterday I took everything out of the kitchen refrigerator and washed all the shelves. I don’t know how he managed to get refrigerators so dirty, but he did it all his life. It wasn’t terribly dirty, but it wasn’t satisfactory, either. It hadn’t been long since the last time it was cleaned out. He overcame that cleaning pretty quickly.

I have a second refrigerator which I bought to hold my own food; the clean food. I should empty it now and put everything in the kitchen. It’s a little weird running to the laundry room every time I want a beer or a soda.

I have to credit God with helping me clean up the house. I use the supernatural tools he gave me. I keep finding that I can’t rest after breakfast. I have to get up and clean. That’s not me, believe me. That’s the Holy Spirit.

I got up at 6:30 today and used the new living room TV for worship again. I played my Christian music Youtube playlist and prayed and sang. It was beautiful. My house is dedicated to God now; every room. I could not have that while my dad was here.

I thought about the fact that he couldn’t share Christianity with me. I used to tell him I was sad that we couldn’t share the most important thing in my life, but it didn’t make an impact on him. He used to complain that we had grown distant, but he wasn’t willing to put up with God in order to get closer. He wanted me the way I used to be. That was not an order I could fill. It was too much to ask.

He can’t share Christianity with me in the house now. I can’t bring him back. I can go to the ALF and pray with him and teach him, though.

It’s hard to make lasting decisions, because my outlook keeps changing. Before the ALF, when life with him was so unpleasant, I thought a lot about how pleasant things would be once I didn’t have to wrestle with him and his problems every day. I felt tremendous relief after he left, even though there was also some pain. I didn’t want to spend too much time with him at the ALF, because it would have undone a lot of the good of moving him. You put people in ALF’s because you can’t sustain the effort you’re putting into caring for them. I figured I would try to see him no more than three times a week.

Yesterday, he asked me my sister’s name, and it showed that he had deteriorated significantly since the week before. That, combined with his recent prayer for salvation, made me rethink things. I can talk to him about God now, and that’s important. That’s worth a drive and some of my time. Also, because he appears to be declining very fast, I now realize I may not have many more opportunities to talk with him. If that’s true, even if it cuts into time I need to spend on other responsibilities, I need to take advantage.

It’s like playing dodgeball. I can’t relax and settle on a course of action. I don’t know where the next throw is coming from.

If your dad has cancer, and you expect him to live a year, you can go on vacation for a week without missing much. If your dad is losing his mind, it’s another story.

Dementia is a black parody of childhood. When you raise kids, you treasure the stages they go through, and you love watching them develop. With dementia, you should treasure the lucid times and the early stages, because dementia patients develop in reverse. If you have a son, you want to be there to hear him say his first words. If you have a demented parent, you want to be there to hear him speak his last ones.

I don’t know if I could have done a better job. I think I could have, but sometimes I criticize myself and then reconsider when I look at the facts.

I didn’t have a coach. There are no coaches. I suppose I could coach someone else now. I’m all out of parents, so I don’t think my knowledge will help me much.

I knocked off one more problem today. I found out what cremation costs: $795. If you go with The Neptune Society, it’s more like $2800. Not sure what you get for that. I also learned you don’t need paperwork to move cremated remains by car. This new information makes things simple. When he goes, I’ll just call a cremation company. Three days later, I’ll be able to get in the car and drive to Kentucky. Boom. Done. During the time it takes to get him ready, I’ll be able to arrange for a service and whatever passes for a viewing. I’ll need to have my mother’s tombstone altered, too.

I suppose you can fly with cremated remains and no paperwork, if you don’t tell the airline what’s in your carry-on. That would be risky these days. They might think ashes were gunpowder.

In Florida, it takes two days for the legal requirements of the cremation process, and I figure an additional day for phone calls. This is how I arrive at the conclusion that I will need three days.

Because my dad has accepted Jesus, and because he seems likely to forget who I am in the very near future, I can see that my caregiving obligations are not going to taper off as quickly as I had expected. I’ll have to be patient a little longer. That’s fine. I will go ahead and spend more time with him. I plan to enjoy it. I will squeeze whatever benefit I can out of it. I am receiving good things I didn’t expect, so I shouldn’t complain.

This is my plan as of 1:15 p.m. Ask me tomorrow, and who knows what I’ll say? I hope I can go a whole day without any more plot twists.