relationships | Bertram's Blog

The Wages of Daughterhood

July 16, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I am so exhausted I can hardly think straight. I keep hoping my life will get easier, but so far that hasn’t happened, not even after my sister came to help with our father. I thought my sister would be a great help when he got out of the hospital after a recent bout of pneumonia and prostate infection, and she is. I also thought her being here would make it easier to meet my own needs, but what I didn’t take into consideration is that there would be another person’s needs to juggle, and this juggling act is already too complicated.

There is a chance my brother will accept my offer to drive him back to Colorado and thereby lessen the stress. There is a chance my father will get better temporarily and won’t need so much looking after. There is a chance I will get all the sleep I need and so be able to handle the immensity of my task with a bit more grace. There is a chance . . . oh, heck. There is a chance of a lot of things, I’m just too tired to list any more of them.

Dance classes remain my savior, both the dancing and the friendship, but despite my trying to keep those lessons sacrosanct, I can see (and foresee) the gradual encroachment into my private time.

Still, no matter what happens on a daily basis, the truth is that my father is 97 years old, very frail (more so because of his recent hospitalization), and does not have many years left. Probably not even a year. His doctor is going to monitor the situation for another month, and then maybe advise hospice, something that up until now he has refused to even discuss.

If my father does go on hospice, the wages of daughterhood would be almost over. (Paraphrasing a quote from The Florist’s Daughter by Patricia Hampl.)

It seems as if most of my life has been spent paying those wages, from taking care of younger siblings when I was young enough to need care myself, to helping when my mother was dying, to looking after my aged father.

On this blog, I spin dreams of epic walks, of living on the road, of being nomadic, but the truth is, I have no idea who I will be when I am no longer “daughter.” Maybe I will crave a place of my own. Maybe I will embrace spontaneity and uncertainty. Maybe I will arrange my life so I can take dance classes three or four days a week and be mobile the rest of the time.

Maybe I will just be.

Meantime, I’m still juggling as best as I can.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in being me, life, relationships. Tags: daughterhood, Patricia Hampl, The Florist’s Daughter, wages of daughterhood. 13 Comments »

Change

July 12, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My father came home yesterday, and today we met with a visiting nurse who will be helping us through the next couple of months. I’m glad to have the help, both of the nurse and my sister. My father has been flat on his back for almost three weeks, more because of his disinclination to sit in a chair or walk rather than any medical issue. (“I have patients’ rights,” he told me smugly. “I have the right to refuse any treatment.” My explanation that sitting did not constitute a “treatment” did not sway him at all.)

He has the idea that he will immediately resume his normal life, and gets furious at me for suggesting it will be otherwise. (I have a hunch his fury stems from the fear that I am right.) I’m to the point where I simply smile at him and keep my reservations to myself. Maybe this time won’t be like all the other times he’s gotten out of the hospital and found himself helpless to do what he wanted. But the truth is, even for the relatively healthy, it takes a while to recuperate from a lengthy hospital stay.

Luckily for me, I won’t be the only one around to cater to his demands.

His homecoming and the nurse aren’t the only changes. My siblings are trying to get my insane and insanely drunk brother evicted from the garage, but supposedly they aren’t going to go against my wishes. I don’t want him forced out on the dusty streets of this hellishly hot and devilishly windy desert town. He needs to be in northern Colorado where perhaps he can get signed up for various social services.

I must be as crazy as he is — I have agreed to drive him back. 1000 miles with someone constantly bellowing in my ears is not my idea of a fun trip, but it’s the only alternative I can think of to legal hassles.

My sister came up with a brilliant idea. Rent some sort of SUV with plenty of cargo area for his hoardings, but take possession of it a few days in advance. Give him the alternative of loading up his stuff and being driven to Colorado in comfort, or staying and dealing with the repercussions of my siblings’ efforts to remove him.

Either way, with him or without him, I take off. If he’s in the vehicle, I only have to deal with him for two days, then blessed silence. If he doesn’t want to go, I take off for a weekend by myself. Sounds wonderful! The days off will also break my father’s psychological dependence on me, so that when I return, I won’t feel so burdened by his neediness.

Lots of changes in the air. I’ll let you know what happens.

***

Posted in life, relationships. Tags: changes, foley catheter, medical issues of the elderly, patients rights, recuperating from hospital stay, visiting nurse. 4 Comments »

Casting Off Old Family Patterns

July 11, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been crying on and off for the past few days, mourning the loss of my brother. He’s still alive, at least physically, but he is so very lost to schizophrenia, alternate personalities, alcoholism or some combination of all three, that it seems as if he is gone forever.

I remember him as a bright twelve-year-old — bright as in joyous, bright as in super intelligent, bright as in the favored child, bright as in open-faced, eagerly awaiting all life had in store for him. Family stories indicate I idolized him, but that was so long ago, I can barely remember anything but being wary of the angry, frightened, intolerant, relentless, bellowing man he has become. To most of my siblings, the neighbors, even the cops who have come to the house, he is, at best, a nuisance and at worst, an animal.

And yet, whatever he has become, he is still a human being.

In June, Robert Wilkinson wrote about the retrograde Mercury: Some will see what contributes to hesitation or insecurity about a life corner that’s already been turned, preparing to reshape their expression before moving forward boldly in July. Others will take a look back, say goodbye, and cast off the old family patterns forever. This can give us a new look at fluid ways of moving with life energies.

The major unresolved family pattern in my life is that of my father, older brother, and me. Those two shaped my adolescence and early adulthood with their fighting and the inability of both to ever see any side but their own. Both used my love as a rope in their tug of war, and it was only when I met Jeff, my life mate/soul mate, that the pattern changed. But not forever. When he died, I went to look after my then 93-year-old father in an effort to restore the Karma of my early life, and fourteen months ago, my brother showed up. And the pattern repeated itself, with each using me as the rope in their tug of war.

Perhaps neither of them could help what they became, but I hoped I could change the pattern of our relationship. My father kicked my brother out of the house when he was a teenager, and when he again wanted to kick him out last year because of some innocuous offense, I counseled against it. And yet, as soon as I left the house that day to run errands, our father tricked his son into leaving and locked him out.

Such patterns seem impossible to change, but a week ago, my sister came to help take care of our father and perhaps to do what she can to help relocate my brother. This constitutes a major shift in our dysfunctional threesome.

I seem to feel the change more than anyone, weeping at what might have been, never was, and never will be. I know now that whatever I hoped out of this insane living situation will never come to pass. My brother will never again be as bright as the youngster I once knew, nor will he ever be the adventurer he was as a young man, where the whole world was his backyard. And my father will never be anything but what he is.

It is I who will have to change, and weeping, apparently, is how I process change. I always hoped that when my responsibilities here were finished, that those patterns of the past would no longer haunt me, but I expected it to be a joyful change. I suppose at some point, when I am truly free, the joy will irrupt, but for now, all I can do is cry for the loss of that bright, sane older brother, and a wise father who could fix anything, even himself.

***

Posted in culture, grief, relationships. Tags: changing family patterns, grieving what might have been, mental illness, mourning the living. 5 Comments »

Becoming Dance

July 10, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Of all the strange places my recent life has taken me, this has to be the strangest. I am sitting in lobby of a convalescent home, waiting for my father to wake from a nap. He’s only here for five days to get intravenous antibiotics to help treat a bout of pneumonia, but the few hours I’ve spent visiting him have made me realize how incredibly lucky I am.

I can walk with a straight back and easy gait. I can breathe unassisted. And oh! I feel so very young. I know this is a temporary condition. If I live long enough, I’ll be as old and decrepit as these folks, but for now, I’m thankful for what youth I have left, for the joy that now comes at increasingly frequent intervals, for the capacity to taste what I eat and drink, for the ability to write and laugh and dance.

Strangely, not only do I feel good, people often mention that I look good, too. Some even say that stress becomes me. The wonder is that I can deal at all with the horrendous stresses of my life — an ailing, aging father and an insane and insanely drunk brother who has spent the past several hours bellowing at me. I am blessed to have wonderful and patient friends who will listen to my horror stories, sometimes for the second and third time, and who will offer hugs when I need them. I have this blog, of course. But mostly I have dancing.

We all need vacations from ourselves and our problems, but when we go on trips, we take ourselves with us. When we dance, especially choreographed dances, we leave ourselves at home. We become the music, the motion, and something else — part of a dancing whole. As the teacher keeps reminding us, we need to do everything in unison — one body, one mind, one soul. When it works, when we know the dance and are in perfect sync, it’s magic. For just one moment, we become more than we are. We become Dance.

Of course, after dance, we become just ourselves with all our attendant problems, but we still have the memory of that moment of freedom to sustain us, and hopefully we’ll still have it even when we’re too old to dance at all.

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: dance, dancing, importance of dancing, stress and dancing, stress and friends, stress and hugs. 2 Comments »

Chaos to the Nth Degree

July 8, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My chaotic and unreal life continues. I’ve written before about my out-of-control abusive brother, and readers have given me much advice, which mostly centered around calling the cops. My few dealings with the cops when they came in answer to neighbor’s complaints led me to believe there was nothing they could or would do, so I never called. My inability to follow this course of action bothered many people, but the truth is, as horrific as he is, I couldn’t see throwing him on the street for strangers to deal with.

But as it turns out, there is nothing I could have done, anyway.

My sister came to help with our 97-year-old father who is failing. He’s been in the hospital for the past two weeks, and is currently in a convalescent hospital for a short stay to get over a bout with pneumonia. When he gets home, he will need someone here all the time, and obviously, I couldn’t do it alone.

It took her a single night to get fed up with our demented, delusional, dissociative and very nasty brother. She called the cops. They came out but did nothing, simply told her he could be evicted but that neither of us could do it since we too are guests. And of course, my father is dealing with his age and health issues, and only wants me to keep his son away from him.

She spent yesterday and this morning trying to line up people who would be willing to get him back to Colorado, and once he was there, to chauffer him around and help him get all the benefits to which he is entitled. Of course, he wouldn’t go along with that. He claims to want to go back to Colorado, but seems unable to make the mental leap. He screams that he wants help, but won’t tell me what he wants me to do, and when I ask, he shrieks “Get me a beer, bitch.” As I said, not a nice man, at least this personality of his isn’t. He has one vulnerable, almost shy personality that seems to have all but disappeared during the past few months.

After we broached the subject of getting him back to Colorado, he slashed the tires on my sister’s car. (He claims he didn’t do it, and is outraged that we accused him, so either someone else did it, or he had a complete psychotic break.) She was so angry, she locked him out of the garage where he is camped, and he broke down the door to get back in. She called 911 again, told them he needs to be taken in on a 5151, which is the code for having him detained and evaluated for 72 hours at a mental facility. It took her at least thirty minutes to get them to agree to send a deputy to “assess” the situation, and another hour for the deputy to come out. (Interestingly, the deputy already knew part of the situation because he was one I had spoken to before.) My sister showed him her tires, the broken window (brother had broken the outside of a double-pane window about six months ago and the inside of that same window just a week or so ago), the broken door, the obscenities on the garage wall (all directed at me, I might add), and in the end, nothing was accomplished. According to the deputy, our brother wasn’t a danger to himself or to us, and so the system could do nothing. Even if our sibling got us so upset that we wanted to kill him, that wasn’t considered a threat, though, with a straight face, the cop warned us against such an action. Then, like the previous cop, he suggested we get my brother evicted. When we admitted we were guests here, he said there was nothing we could do. “Well, there is one thing,” he said, then hesitated. “What?” I asked. “You could let him badly hurt you,” he responded.” Yeah, right, like I’m going to on purpose let him hurt me in order to get him out of here so he doesn’t hurt me.

As for the tires, he said she could file a complaint, and both she and my brother would have to show up in court. I explained that he wouldn’t show up, and the cop said the courts would swear out a warrant, and if they found him, would simply set a new date. I said he already had warrants for not showing up for court dates, and the cop shrugged. (He’d come wearing a bullet proof vest, which made his shrug very stiff.) Apparently, if my brother is ever arrested again, the old charges and the new charge would be combined and a new court date set. This could go on for years until he racks up more than $500,000 in warrants. (He’s only up to perhaps $10,000.)

So, here we are, barricaded in, the doorbell muted, while our brother roams around outside the house, like some sort of insane Wee Willie Winkie, “rapping at the window, crying through the lock.”

I had always held the thought of calling the cops as a mental safety net, knowing there was something I could do when he went totally out of control, but that mental safety net disappeared when the cop drove away.

The one interesting aspect of the conversation is that the cop said he never had guests. Never. His brother wanted to stay with him, and he refused. In this state, there is no way to get rid of guests who outstay their welcome, even if you’re a cop.

[For those of you who are following Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare, don’t be surprised if you see a truncated version of this post in the story.]

***

Posted in life, relationships. Tags: 5151, 72 hours in a mental facility, calling the cops, delusional, demented, dissociative personalilty disorder. 3 Comments »

My New (Temporary) Relationship

July 2, 2014 — Pat Bertram

A couple of weeks ago my car broke down, and for a week, the mechanic kept promising to fix it, but all sorts of emergencies got in the way, and he had to take care of those cars first. Emergencies? My car is the only one I have, and during the time it wasn’t working, my 97-year-old father had to go to the emergency room, doctors, and again to the hospital to take care of a medical crisis. How much more of an emergency could there possibly have been? Still, they did fix the car. For a couple of days, anyway.

Two or three days ago, the accelerator cable got stuck when I was out doing errands, and I had to drive back to the house at 5 miles per hour in second gear. I called the mechanic, thinking I’d try to make it to the repair shop, but he said to go home and he would come out and look at the car. I got back to the house, and waited. And waited. And waited. He never came. Never called.

The next day I called him again, and he said he’d stop by after he finished for the day. Again, I waited. And waited. Made sure I had my phone by me so he could call if he couldn’t make it. Never came. Never called.

So this morning I called him again, and asked if he had forgotten me. He admitted that he had. He promised to come by in an hour or two, and said he’d call when he was on his way. So I made sure I had my phone. And I waited. And waited. He never came. Never called.

Finally I left to go to check on my father (luckily the hospital is within walking distance), and on my way, it occurred to me that this little contretemps with the mechanic seemed remarkably like a relationship, always waiting for him to stop by or call.

I know all relationships aren’t like that, but enough of them are to make me glad that my foray into online dating didn’t work out. I can just see me, sitting by the phone or the door the rest of my life, waiting for calls that never come, for visits that never materialize. Ouch.

Luckily, this particular relationship is a finite situation. One day the car will be fixed and I’ll have my life back. And that will be the end of waiting for men folk who so easily forget that I am alive.

***

Posted in life, relationships. Tags: mechanic, waiting, waiting for calls, waiting for men. 3 Comments »

Temper, Temperament, and Temperature

June 30, 2014 — Pat Bertram

My life continues its bizarre and zigzagging path into chaos. I finally got my car back from the auto shop, and like a human, it paid me back for the kindness with a temper tantrum. (It is strange how often people treat badly those who do them a favor.) The accelerator cable got stuck when I was out doing errands today, and I had to drive back to the house at 5 miles per hour in second gear. It was almost humorous, actually, but it wouldn’t have been so humorous if I’d gotten reamed crossing a busy street at such a miniscule speed. The mechanic will come look at it later. Old cars are temperamental and have such peculiar things going wrong. This time it’s probably a spring. Or at least I hope it’s that innocuous.

Besides that, I’ve been getting into fights with everyone today, especially the men in my life. They think I should blindly accept whatever they say, and I don’t think I should. I suppose it’s possible I’m at fault, but it’s hard to believe that no matter who I talk to and about what, I’m in the wrong. I should be right about something, don’t you think? It seems impossible to be wrong in everything I say. (That’s why I like this blog. I can say whatever I want, and blithely continue on my life without everything turning into an argument.)

My father is still in the hospital, and he’s being more temperamental than usual. Every time I talk to him, he’s castigating me for something. Yesterday he was accepting of the possible need for a catheter for the rest of his life, but he was insistent that I get him out of there at that very moment. Wasn’t happy with me at all when I said we had to wait to find out what was going on. He did acquiesce to staying a bit longer when I reminded him that there were no pain medications at the house.

Today when I went to see him, he was upset with the idea of the catheter and refused to go home with it still inserted. He’d been having troubles with incontinence, and he said he didn’t mind my having to change his diapers if it got to that point. (Of course, he didn’t ask if I minded.) When I reminded him that the catheter was to drain his bladder, and that it was the full bladder that caused him pain, he got mad at me. He also said he was willing to stay in the hospital longer. Yikes.

I understand that he wants to be in control and that he thinks having a catheter means turning his body over to a machine, but he doesn’t seem to understand the realities of a 97-year-old body — that the body is in control. If it’s not working, it’s not working. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he will get the use of his bladder back. And maybe he will — luck is generally on his side.

Hundred degree temperatures don’t cool people’s tempers, but I’m trying to be as patient as I can. I hope the people I see are giving me the same courtesy.

***

Posted in life, relationships. Tags: bladder doesn't work, catheter, temper tantrum, temperamental, temperature. 10 Comments »

The Bees Of The Invisible

June 27, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Life and death are strange things. Or maybe it’s death that’s strange, at least to those of us who are still alive. A wise friend keeps saying we have to just accept the way things are, that we could go nuts trying to figure out the whys of it all, but since I seem to live on the edge of death (other people’s deaths, not mine), death and the process of getting there are often on my mind.

We start out as miniscule bits and pieces of two people, are born, grow from helpless infants to independent-minded children to independent and autonomous adults, finally ending up helpless again as our bodies deteriorate.

A few friends were talking the other day about all the nonagenarians in our lives, and someone asked what use they were. This is a question many of these aged folks themselves ask, so it’s not an insensitive question by any means. When there is nothing left to accomplish, when you can’t move about freely either mentally or physically, when you can no longer enjoy anything, not even your food because your taste buds have decamped, what use is there in living?

My 97-year-old father is “declining” as the doctors say, which is a cute euphemism for “slowly dying”. He could live a year or more, but still, everything is breaking down, even his normally sharp mind. He hates that he can’t think, hates that he can’t make instantaneous decisions, hates even more to have others make decisions for him. Even worse, he finds the situation embarrassing. I tell him, of course, that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, that it’s part of the process, but my words don’t make him feel any better about himself.

I don’t want to live to such a great age, and especially I don’t want to wind up helpless and dependent on strangers (I won’t have the benefit my father has of a caregiving daughter). My wise friend reminds me we have no choice in the matter, which is true. The only real choice we have is to live as well as we can as long as we can.

For a long time I’ve thought that if God is Everything, then we are the sensory cells of the Everything, feeling, seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting life. And the poet Rilke seems to agree. He wrote, “It is our task to imprint this temporary perishable earth into ourselves, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again ‘invisibly’ inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.”

Maybe these nonagenarians are still gathering their invisible honey as best as they can, but even so, it doesn’t make it any easier watching the old get even older and feebler, gradually losing their touch on life.

Bee

***

Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: bees of the invisible, declining, God is Everything, life and death, meaning of life and death, Rilke, slowly dying, what use are old folks. 2 Comments »

When Chaos Rains

June 24, 2014 — Pat Bertram

Yeah, I know — the expression is when chaos reigns, but lately it seems as if chaos is raining down on me like an acidic shower that erodes everything it touches. Maybe things aren’t that bad. It’s possible I simply no longer have any perspective on the way things should be.

Take today for example. My car broke down last Wednesday, and every day since then the mechanic has promised to have the car ready for me. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem except that my 97-year-old father is going through a medical crisis, and I’ve had to beg for rides to pharmacies for his medications, to doctors appointments, to and from the hospital. A lovely woman squired us around today, taking us not only to the doctor but to the hospital afterward when the same doctor who didn’t want to admit my father last Thursday decided my father needed hospital care after all. My friend waited for me for a rain while, then when I got tired of watching my father sleeping in the emergency room because they didn’t have a bed for him, we went out to dinner. Afterward, she took me back to the hospital so I could check on him once more, and it’s a good thing because they hadn’t fed him. And he was cold.

I got that straightened out, then my friend drove me home only to be met my demented brother who screamed obscenities at her. Cripes, she didn’t deserve that. Well, neither do I, of course, but her only “sin” was doing a good deed. She is used to dealing with the problems of the aged, so she understood what I was going through with my father, but now I feel bad for even asking her.

Luckily she, like everyone else in my life, knows the truth, so she didn’t believe brother dearest’s accusations that I’m killing the old man. (Where does he get this stuff?)

Perhaps I will get my car back tomorrow (with a hefty repair bill, I might add), but it’s no longer critical. I don’t need to worry about getting my father to the doctor’s office or to the hospital since he is already there. Well, sort of there. He’s parked in the emergency room with minimal care because even if they did have a bed for him, they don’t have the staff to man and woman it. Still, he’s right next to the nurse’s station, and she just got on duty and isn’t bored with the day yet, so he should be okay.

Me? I am so not cool. I lost my temper and screamed at my brother . I feel as if I should be above such base activities, but I am not always the person I want to be. Someday, perhaps . . .

***

Posted in being me, life, relationships. Tags: dealing with the aged, demented brother, medical emergency, when chaos reigns. 7 Comments »

Planning Epic Transcendental and Mystical Journeys

June 21, 2014 — Pat Bertram

I am so beyond stressed out from taking care of my father’s latest medical crisis, my brother’s continued mental problems, and my own lack of sleep because of caring for them that I can no longer find comfort in planning epic transcendental and mystical journeys. But here is an update for those of you who have expressed concern about my idea of walking up the Pacific Coast to Seattle.

Although I would take precautions, there is no doubt such a walk could be dangerous, but for now, that is not something I want to consider. In the past eight years, I’ve watched three people die slowly and painfully from cancer, and now I am watching my 97-year-old father die even more slowly from old age. Not taking the trip because of possible dangers would be merely saving myself for even more probable trauma in the future. Life itself is a danger. It does terrible things to people, taking everything they have until there is nothing left but a husk of skin and bones.

Despite all my thinking and blogging about an epic adventure, there is a chance this walk is merely a fantasy. I am not sure I have the physical capabilities of walking so far or spending so much time outside. I am not sure I can carry enough water and emergency supplies. And to be honest, I’m not sure I really want to do it — the thought could simply be a means of mentally escaping an untenable living situation. Still, if I take the trip, or try to take it, I will be as prepared as possible without carrying the whole world on my back. I’m looking into such things as mylar emergency blankets, down vests, bear spray (I figure if it can ward off a bear, the spray could ward off any human predator, too). I am also researching the best way of carrying things, and no, it isn’t on the back, it’s on the head, but that I won’t even consider. I want to look as if I am on a walk, not backpacking through the wilderness or trekking around East Africa.

The walk is only one possible adventure I am considering. I started out planning an extended cross-country road trip, perhaps visiting the national parks, sometimes camping out with full camping gear and sometimes staying in motels to catch up on civilization’s offerings, and this is still a possibility, especially if my car is running. (If I were to walk up the coast, I’m not sure what I would do with the vehicle during the year I would be gone.) Another possibility is to somehow use my ancient VW as a means of promoting my books, maybe painting it by hand to attract attention or letting people who buy a book sign my car while I am signing their book. (Although I like that idea, I’m not sure how to market it. Marketing, unfortunately, is not my forte.)

And it’s possible I wouldn’t want to stop taking dance lessons, in which case I would take shorter long walks to prepare for the epic walk or go on weekend camping trips to gain experience in the outdoors. (Besides, my dance teacher says she doesn’t want me to stop, and it’s been a long time since someone wanted me around just for me, not for what I could do for them.)

In other words, despite all my blogging, thinking, talking, I have no idea what I will do when my responsibilities end.

Well, I do know one thing. I will sleep, or at least try to. Being responsible for others’ care is exhausting.

***