A Family Record

“Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.” Joseph Addison

My father continues to survive lung cancer and it’s accompanying dementia intensified by his near blindness due to macular degeneration. Almost 10 months ago, the oncologist said a biopsy would tell us exactly what type of cancer was eating away his lung and had wrapped itself around the aorta and spread to lymph nodes BUT a biopsy would not change the outcome. He suggested we engage hospice. If the cancer is small cell cancer, which he suspected, my father would succumb naturally to its effects in 2 or 3 months; if it were the slower growing large-cell cancer, he could last 7 to 8 months. Ten months later, he coughs a little more but is still able to walk from his chair to the bathroom, dining table and bedroom and seems only slightly weaker than when we received the initial prognosis.

After the initial shock, we set into a routine of trying to care for him and eventually contracted with hospice. His dementia leaves him not only in a state of constant confusion but also frequently agitated and upset about some urgent task such as returning the non-existent rental car, the overdue books on tape, vacating the premises since we are not authorized to be here or getting off the ship, the island, the RV, etc., etc. Attempts to calm him with reason are futile and like today, he usually accuses my mother or us of being ‘crazy and needing to be in an institution.’

His physical care is not difficult but his constant badgering and impossible demands are wearing, especially on my mother. I have already experienced the grief of losing my father. Now are lives are in a holding pattern while we wait for him to die. I do not intend to sound callous but our reality is that we are caring for a deranged stranger and sometimes it’s difficult because he is not ‘him.’

I was in this state of mind when my cousin from New Jersey and his wife came to visit over the Labor Day weekend. It was then that we pulled out a video made by my talented son-in-law with input from all our family. The video was a labor of love composed of old photos, old home movies, recent interviews and recordings by myself and brother and our children. It was a love story of the courtship, marriage and family my parents created and the legacy they wove for their posterity. Many late nights went into its production and we presented it as a gift at the celebration of my parents Golden Wedding Anniversary. That was 14 years ago!

A remarkable and healing perspective came as I viewed this video that had been on the shelf for years. I saw photos and movies of my younger father and memories flooded back of the times we shared as I grew up and as he shared in the lives of my growing children. He was young and strong and much of the film was at the ocean’s edge or walking in the thickly forested mountains of California and Oregon. The shell of the man we care for now is not who my father is; the gospel message is the assurance that he will in time be raised in immortality and once again and for eternity, be at his prime with his mind and faculties fully restored. Meanwhile, the video helped restore memories and renew faith and hope in the future, making the present more patiently bearable.

I have always felt strongly inclined to keep a record of our family as it grew and changed. I did not foresee the circumstances we find ourselves in now but I am grateful now for the visual and vocal as well as written records we have kept and compiled; they have blessed me in a way I had not anticipated.