2018: Annus Horribilis

Well That Sucked

To borrow a phrase from Queen Elizabeth (and others), 2018 was truly annus horribilis for me and my family. In my post from last January I described some of the challenges I faced after a traumatic end to 2017 following my mother’s passing and our decision to move Dad near us so we could take care of him.

Unfortunately, the new year was no kinder.

My Dad

My family and I did our best to support my father in his new living situation. Suffering from advanced dementia as well as deep depression since Mom’s death, he had a steady decline both in physical and mental health. Not being sure of when the disease had started, the doctors’ best guess of his remaining time with us was between six months and six years, saying that it was up to him to decide if he had it in him to go on.

I visited him almost every day and experienced heartbreak each time: seeing this strong, creative, and loving man withdraw into himself as the depression compounded the effects of the disease to the point that he could no longer tell what was real and what was not, recounting to me increasingly violent hallucinations that he had nearly every night. We tried different treatments and medications as I oversaw every aspect of his care, managed his financial affairs, and did everything I could to make him as comfortable as possible. During our visits, I often held his hand and we reminisced about family stories, vacations, and misadventures, including my confessing to him some of the truly stupid things I did as a kid that I thought he didn’t know about. When he understood what I was saying, he laughed and told me that he and Mom knew about most of them. We both took every opportunity we had to say that how grateful we were to have this time and how we loved one another. In many ways, this was the closest I felt to my Dad in a long time.

My Mother-in-Law

At the same time that all of this was going on with my Dad, my wife and her brother were enduring the challenge of caring for their mother who had been battling cancer for several years and was now nearing the end of her life.

The strain on everyone in our family was immeasurable and seemed unbound.

Last Hurrah

We planned a luncheon at the end of March, bringing my father, my mother-in-law, and our families together to celebrate Easter and the arrival of Spring. Unfortunately, at the last minute, my mother-in-law was feeling too poorly to join us.

The photo below captured the last time we were all together with Dad.

April is the Cruelest Month

The week after our Easter luncheon, my Dad had fell and broke his hip. His health was too poor for him to survive surgery, let alone successfully complete the months of rigorous physical rehab it would require for him to walk again. His health made yet another rapid decline and he passed two weeks later. We were heartbroken.

The following week, while we were out-of-state at my father’s funeral, my wife received the call that her mother had lost her battle with cancer and passed in her sleep. It was yet another crushing blow.

For my family, Shakespeare had made a serious understatement about April being the cruelest month.

No Rest for the Wicked

In the weeks following the funerals, the company I work for was acquired. I was fortunate to have survive the whirlwind of staff reductions and reorganizations, then continued working and waited for the dust to settle as the new owners figured out a plan.

In the interim I dug into settling my parent’s estate and the maelstrom of paperwork, phone calls, faxes, and administrivia that entails. Already emotionally punch drunk, trying to navigate insurance companies, health insurance claims, and out-of-state pension systems felt like a Sisyphean task. I ended up procrastinating on much of it, but some items demanded timeliness and consumed what little attention I could muster as I slowly climbed from the depths of depression and my grief.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Now, here I am at year’s end, I look back and am grateful to have survived the intense, emotional rollercoaster ride that was annus horribilis. It has only been in the last few weeks, as we started into the Christmas season with my children getting excited about Santa’s arrival, that I have started to feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train. I am hopeful for the new year, and, in future posts, I will outline a few of my ideas for getting back into the Maker frame of mind on a regular basis.