Chapter 13

My Dad Dying

    The next couple of weeks were pretty frantic for us all,  getting settled in and so forth. The moving van showed up and after unpacking everything we still found ourselves with too much junk - we had to rent two storage units!  The house, although completed enough for us to move into, still had numerous issues to be resolved. The pool company had started construction,  but I was uncomfortable with the foreman on our project.  He seemed to have  too many other responsibilities. As it turned out, some things were forgotten and had to be rectified after the fact.

    My company had decided to hire a new manager and boy, did they really blow it! This guy was the biggest shyster you could imagine. He could smile, put his arm around you and make you think you were his best buddy - all the while putting a knife in your back. Can you guess I wasn’t impressed with the guy?  I was apprehensive about working with this guy,  but greater things were being worked behind the scenes.

    In the midst of all of this turmoil my dad Walt's brother-in-law, Ray Taramasco, called and told me that Walt was in the hospital with a fast growing brain tumor. (If you’ll remember,  I was adopted by Walt and Jackie,  but they divorced a couple of years later.) Although Walt and I weren’t real close,   we did see each other 2-3 times a year. Also, he and his wife Jennie seemed to have really been taken with the kids. That, in turn, brought us a little bit closer as the kids grew up.

    The phone call from Ray was a complete shock to me. Walt was always one of those individuals who seem indestructible. He and Jennie had always taken care of themselves and were always on the go. We never knew where we would get the next postcard from - Alaska, Hawaii, or any of a hundred cities around the US.  They were always traveling.

                                                                                                                                                        I probably shouldn’t have been surprised because he was 82 years old and he and Jennie were always secretive about their lives and health. A couple of years previously they had visited us in Twin Falls. My dad shocked us by opening up his shirt and showing us this 12" fresh scar on his chest. He had had a triple heart bypass about six months prior and this is the first we had heard of it!  It was no different for his brother-in-law,  Ray,  and his wife,  Judy,  than it was for us. We lived in Twin Falls, but Ray and Judy lived right in San Diego with Walt and Jenny and they didn’t know until after the fact.

    With that background in mind, Ray called me and he told me Walt was going into surgery the next day but Walt didn’t think it was important enough for me to come. I asked Ray what he thought and he said he didn’t think the prognosis looked very encouraging,  so I decided I needed to be with Walt. I drove to San Diego the next day and I’m glad that I did. Walt didn’t look very good but he sure seemed happy to see me,  though he was still pretty spacey from the anesthetics.

    The next day I talked with the physician in charge and quite frankly, he told me there was nothing they could do. Apparently,  my dad had had a physical about six months previously and there was no indication of anything abnormal. Within six months this tumor appeared and grew to the size of a golf ball. Based on how aggressive this tumor was growing he gave my dad less than 6 months to live. Needless to say,  I was flabbergasted!  First my mom and now my dad.

    Ray and I talked to my dad that same day. Dad decided to tell his wife,  Jennie, the diagnosis and the prognosis, himself, alone. He also decided to tell us that Jennie had been diagnosed with preliminary Alzheimer’s disease the previous December and he was pretty concerned for her. Later on, when we were alone,  he asked me if I could spend some time in San Diego to take care of some financial matters for he and Jennie.

    I called my company and told them of the situation - they generously gave me a month's leave of absence. I say generously because I had only worked for them for four months and had already taken two weeks off when my mother died. I told them I would keep them posted.

    The next couple of weeks were spent in San Diego with me driving home on the weekends. (I didn’t want to miss church and I had to keep up on what was going on with the real-life soap opera concerning the pool and the house.) I was really shocked by how quickly Jennie seemed to be deteriorating because of her Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t know how quickly that disease progresses,  but you could almost visibly see her fade away from understanding what was going on.

    Walt could see this,   also,  and Ray and I had to reassure him more than once that we would make sure that she was taken care of. I spent a fair amount of time taking him to the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla where he was undergoing some chemotherapy to try to slow the rate of his tumor's growth.

    Walt and Jennie were now living together in the same room in an extended care facility. We had found out that on at least a couple of instances Jennie had been cooking at their apartment,  forgotten what she had been doing, and burned up pots and pans. This was an opportunity to get her used to living in one of these care facilities as there was no doubt that she could not go back to living by herself when the inevitable happened to Walt.

    Walt and Jennie had been married for many, many years. I could see that Jennie had been totally devoted to Walt and her world revolved around his needs and wishes. He liked sports activities,  so most of their activities revolved around various fan clubs and civic groups. Because of this,   we were concerned how she was taking the stark reality of Walt’s terminal illness. I believe the Lord was most generous here. As Walt’s life drew to a close, Jennie seemed to be withdrawing, which I believe was a blessing. We all  knew she would have a very difficult time learning to live without Walt.  As it turned out,   with her fading memory the transition was much easier than we expected. Thank you,  Jesus!

    I need to throw a little item in at this point of the story. During one of my weekend trips back home there was an announcement of a Minister’s Conference at the Cloverdale Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although I can’t be a minister because of my sordid past - nor do I have a calling of God to be a minister, I felt a very strong desire to attend those meetings. I put it out of my mind,  because I knew I couldn’t take another week off from work,  nor could I leave my dad since the end was approaching. We couldn’t say for sure,  but the doctors told us - and we could see for ourselves - that his condition was deteriorating very rapidly.

    About the end of May my new boss left a message for me to call him. I had called just about every week,  so I was somewhat surprised by the call. When I returned the call he asked me to come into the office when I returned from San Diego. When we met he asked about my dad’s condition and I gave him a full report, including the prognosis of no more than a couple of weeks to live.

    At that point my boss said, "Well, we need you back here next Monday."

    The way he said it, there was no doubt in my mind that he was giving me an ultimatum - either come to work on Monday or get fired. The choice was either my job or my dad, and the choice was clear. I told him I was sorry for the trouble I was causing, but my dad meant much more to me than any job, so we parted company. Two weeks later my dad died.

    I believe I mentioned that I had been transporting Walt to and from the hospital. He seemed to have problems sitting for any length of time.  I did not realize he had developed bedsores on his bottom. I was to find out later just how much suffering they can cause.

    His last day was spent waiting for long periods of time in the hospital to be seen by this specialist or that one. A couple of times he tried to get up out of the wheelchair and I had to keep him seated so he wouldn’t fall. He looked terribly tired and in a lot of pain. It just broke my heart to see him suffering so. After we were finished I took him back to the care facility and went back to my motel to rest. A couple of hours later Ray called and said that he had passed away. I rushed back to the home, then Ray and I made arrangements for the funeral.

    The funeral was a Masonic funeral with many of his friends and acquaintances attending. Ray, being Jennie’s brother, had made arrangements for Jennie to start living in a care facility devoted to early Alzheimer’s patients. Mary Cook, Jennie’s sister took the responsibility of closing up their apartment of some 40 years. (more on this later)

    On the way back from San Diego,  I felt an overwhelming sense of loss and of being alone. Sure I had my family and my wife’s family.  I even had my church family which had come to mean so much to us - but I sure felt alone. Like a boat just drifting in and out with the tide. No direction and no anchor. One other thought crossed my mind on that trip back home. No need to go back to San Diego again next week and no job to worry about. But wait! Praise God!  I can go to the Minister’s Convention in Vancouver, British Columbia!  I didn’t know it,  but God again was fixing to do a mighty work in my life.