Loading...Here’s the next quote I used to say a lot which now has new meaning: “Man makes plans, God laughs.”
I’m sitting on a deck in a backyard in Aurora, Colorado listening to my stepmother’s wind-chimes and the wind rustling through the trees. All the irises and columbine flowers have bloomed as well as the tree they call the “bee tree” for what I’m learning are obvious reasons. There is a lot of suburban wildlife in the backyard of this house my Dad and stepmother moved into during my junior year of college. I won’t tell you when that was but let’s just say the year didn’t start with a 2. There are squirrels and magpies, bunnies and blue jays. Yesterday I saw a momma fox and her 2 little kits running around in the neighbor’s front yard. I had seen them a couple of days ago on the very deck where I sit now.
This blows my mind a little because I grew up in Aurora, not in this house, but not far from this house, and I never saw a fox or a fox kit in our backyard. Granted it could be attributed to the suburban wildlife feeding station my dad and stepmom set up at this house with peanuts and thistle and seed. Finches like thistle, apparently, and I’ve seen a goldfinch, a strawberry finch and some sort of grey finch that doesn’t seem to have its own sexy name. It is oddly peaceful, considering all the madness that seems to me lurking out there at the stage door, just waiting for someone to crack the door so it can rush in.
My dad was a high school biology teacher when I was a kid and there were always snakes and hamsters and other critters around. Every outing was an adventure of what sort of creepy crawlers were trying to scurry away from us. More than one time we would find an injured snake and we would catch it and nurse it back to health to be released into a field away from our house. We would catch tadpoles in puddles and raise them to be little frogs. If my hamster died, it was time to do an autopsy that even Quincy would admire.
After they moved into this house, my dad created a camera set up that was like a hunting blind- a tripod and curtain to hid him and provide good light, a chair. He would sit there and stare out of his camera lens and wait for something to scurry into frame so he could take a picture. Eric used to tease him and call him Terry Mieger- the world’s laziest nature photographer.
Joking aside, he did also venture out into nature beyond the backyard- reservoirs, mountains, zoos. The first time he went to Florida he probably took 2,000 pictures of birds and flowers and alligators. One year, when visiting us in LA, he almost had a stroke when he discovered there were turtles in the pond in front of the famous Hobbit House in Culver City. I had taken him there to see the unusual architecture and tell the interesting “only in LA story” about the house. But all he saw were those fucking turtles. Dad had many chapters in his life and his last was an actual nature photographer. He taught classes in it, because of course he did, and belonged to clubs. Every year he would create a calendar with 12 of his favorite photos from the year and send it out to everyone he could think of.
Being here in Colorado this week has made me think a lot about states—the United States in which we live, that is. More specifically how, why in the fuck, when it comes to matters of life and death, should there be differences in how things are handled, from state to state. Shouldn’t it be, when it comes to the most essential thing about yourself—your life, your breath, your health—that the only state we truly live in is the state of being a human being.
Before I came here, I thought a lot about this in relation to this COVID crisis we are in. Why can I get a free test in Los Angeles without even symptoms, while other areas refuse to even acknowledge there is a problem? Why am I required to cover my face while other states are not? Not even other states, but other cities, other counties that I can literally WALK to. Why can’t we have one unified response to the problem so that we just get it over with? I’m asking these hypothetically because I know there are answers and no solutions but I don’t want to dwell on it too much.
Now that I’m here I’ve been thinking about this in relation to healthcare. Two weeks ago my dad was placed in hospice care. He had been diagnosed with cancer a little over a year ago and after a year of ineffective treatments, among other things, we have come to this. Isn’t it strange how these things always happen faster than you think they will?
I wish I could say that this is my first experience with home hospice care. It is my 4th in 3 different states. This is my 2nd experience with the Denver hospice. And I found myself wondering why in Massachusetts my stepfather had a hospice nurse with him almost 24 hours a day yet here we have to pay for a nighttime health aide and we’ve seen the nurse twice. Why in New Mexico did we feel so supported, from the nurse to the bath aide to the chaplain, they provided everything we needed and were with us whenever we raised a hand, yet here we’re not even sure how much medication to give and when. My stepmom hasn’t even met the hospice doctor.
And again I start to think, shouldn’t this be the same for all? Shouldn’t all of us have the right to die in the same level of comfort no matter our zip code? Shouldn’t the family members of the dying receive the same level of information, or support, or guidance no matter where? And yes I’m being naïve but so fucking what. We should want these things. And I know it’s not worse right now because of the pandemic because my other experience in Denver was during normal times. The only difference now is we’re talking through masks.
There you have it—COVID and my dad’s death, two of my top reasons for hating 2020. Two reasons to remind me about how far away we are from what is important. Two reasons for me to wonder why we have to be so far away.
Dad died early on May 21. We finally figured out the meds and he was finally peaceful. He taught us a lesson until the end, that you don’t change who you are just because you can’t walk and you can’t talk. He could still roll his eyes, he could still give me that look when he knew what I was saying was bullshit. I’ll never forget that.
Before I go, I have to add that I just glanced over and saw a black cat running away from the deck toward the side of the house. Beside the obvious question of how many holes do they have in their stupid fence, I would also like to add, “what the fuck?” It’s official, I’m truly doomed. God’s laughing, I suppose.
