In January of this year, the call
came that we were both hoping for and dreading.
CM Tucker Veterans Home in Columbia had a room for Daddy. For many years, Daddy had lived in the
presence of Parkinson’s Disease – during those years he worked in maintenance
at Peachtree Center, he went camping with my mom and other family and friends,
attended countless family celebrations and generally lived a full and happy
life. However, as time passed and the
disease progressed, Daddy began to lose his ability to care for himself and do
all the things that those of us who are healthy so often take for granted. By January of this year, Mother was having to
care for his every need, and we found ourselves making the difficult decision
to move him to “Tuckertown” as he called it.
As Daddy has traveled this difficult road, through his words, actions,
and stories he has taught us all some important life lessons.
First, Daddy has taught us to be wise
in choosing our life’s partner. One
reason moving to the Tucker Center was difficult for Daddy was that Mother took
such good care of him. She helped him
dress, shaved him, managed his medicines, took him out to eat, fixed his
favorite foods, drove him to the rook room, carried him to Tribe Talk Live,
made sure he had his cheese crackers at bedtime, and a thousand other things
that made his life full and happy. She
took the “in sickness and in health” part of her vows seriously and worked very
hard to make his life happy and full.
Second, I learned never give up on
your dreams. In these last months,
Daddy’s dreams were very simple. He
wanted to be at home with my mother.
When he first arrived at Tucker, he was fully aware of where he was and
made no bones about wanting to go home.
In fact, one evening Dee and I brought him shrimp for dinner. He refused to eat it, saying he would take it
home with him and eat it there. Then he
looked at me and said, “Get me out of here now!” Explaining to him that we couldn’t do that
just didn’t go over with him. As he held
his cup of water in his hand, he asked me, “Are you going to take me home?” When I tried once again to explain that it
wasn’t an option, he threw his whole cup of ice water on me. Man, he had good aim, even sitting in his
wheelchair. We cleaned up the water as
best we could, and as I sat there shivering in my wet britches, Daddy decided
he had made his point and ate every one of the 12 shrimp we had brought
him. However, he never quit wanting to
go back home and eventually began to believe that he was home. One day when I was pushing him in his
wheelchair down the hall at the Tucker Center, he looked around him and said,
“You know Linda. Your mother and I don’t
need this much room. I think she and I
should give this house to the church and build ourselves something smaller.” Many times, when he was talking to my mother
on the phone, after a short conversation he would tell her he needed to go to
work but that he would be home in a few hours.
He often called his caregivers Ann and would get upset if one of them
didn’t answer to her name. Bless their
hearts, they played the role of my mother quite often because it made Daddy
happy.
Daddy taught me that there is always
time for a good story. Daddy was a
storyteller all of his life and that didn’t change when he got to the Tucker
Center. He entertained all his visitors
and his caregivers with stories about his life.
Some of the stories were true, like the time he and mother were on the
pontoon when the water got rough and a bucket of worms flew up in the air and
dumped all over my mother, even going in her mouth. Other stories were creations of his vivid
imagination, but he believed they were true and they made him happy. While Daddy was living at the Tucker Center,
he built multiple houses on the lake, bought and sold property which made him a
fortune, rode in a helicopter and threw money down to my mother, bought and
sold several trucks, and worked in maintenance at Tucker. He often complained that they didn’t pay him
and he was going to retire. When he got
too upset about not being paid, his nurses would write him a “check” for his
work that he would carry around in his pocket.
One of my favorite stories Daddy told was about his purchase of a
motorcycle. We were sitting in the
dining hall while he ate his lunch one day and he told me that he had bought a
motorcycle. We talked about what kind it
was and how much he paid for it. After a
while, he got a big grin on his face and said, “I gave the motorcycle to
Zach.” I asked him if Tommy and Genene
knew about that and he said “no.” Later
that afternoon, we were sitting out on the front porch of Tucker when a
motorcycle roared by on the street below.
Daddy looked at me, grinned, and said, “There goes Zach.”
Perhaps the most important lesson
that my daddy taught me through these last few months is that true love never
fails. Your body can fail you, your mind
can fail you, but the love you have for others remains strong. It may exhibit itself in unusual ways, but it
is love still the same. My husband, Dee,
arrived at Tucker one afternoon to visit my daddy and found him tenderly
cradling a sock in his arms. Daddy was
obviously upset and when Dee asked what was wrong Daddy said, “My cat has died
and I need someone to bury it.” He
thought the sock was his cat, Lillie Belle.
Daddy often talked about his babies (his dog Daisy Mae and cat Lillie
Belle), and worried about them being taken care of. He also kept each of his children on his
mind. One of his nurses,
Jennifer Evans,
became my sister, Debbie, in his mind, and Daddy would often tell me, “I just
talked to your sister a minute ago.” One
day we were visiting and Daddy couldn’t wait to tell me about my sister, Cathy,
running in a foot race. Apparently,
Cathy was running against an Olympic champion and was 12 laps behind her when
the last lap began. Then Daddy grinned
and said, “Darn if Cathy didn’t catch that woman and win the race.” He was so proud. When Daddy had a problem that needed to be
solved, he had me call Buddy. One day,
he told me his truck had broken down, and he was worried someone would tow it
away. I told him that I would call Buddy
and ask him to take care of it for him.
That didn’t satisfy Daddy. “Call
him right now.” So, I did and,
fortunately, Buddy was on his way home from work and answered. I explained about Daddy’s truck and Buddy
talked to Daddy and told him that he had put it in his garage and would take
care of it until Daddy could come get it.
Tommy, he talked about you a lot.
Sometimes he was worried about you – he thought you were sick and I had
to do some quick talking to convince him you were fine. Other times, he would tell me about a job you
had keeping books for a pharmacy and how he was helping you run the numbers. Even when we couldn’t be with him, we were
always real in his heart and mind. His
love for us led him to create situations in which he could express that
love. His greatest love was my mama. I don’t think I ever visited him that he
didn’t talk about her. Sometimes, he
told me that he had just seen her; she
was working around the corner. Although
this comforted him, it became a problem when he wanted me to take him by her
office to see her. “Linda, her office is
in this building. Why can’t we go see
her?” So, I lied. “Daddy, she had to go out for a while, she
had a meeting, she’s off work now and gone home.”
Other times, he worried about her
health. He was convinced that she was
addicted to drugs that she ordered from Mexico.
Most visits, we would call Mother so that Daddy could talk to her. More than once, Dee and I would be sitting
there listening to their conversation and Daddy would put his hand over the
phone and whisper to us, “She’s drunk or she’s on pills right now.” One day when they hung up from each other I
called Debbie and asked her to assure Daddy that she would get mother into a
rehab program and make sure she didn’t do any more drugs. I couldn’t convince him she wasn’t doing what
he believed she was doing. As I’ve
thought of his concerns, I’ve realized that he was doing everything in his
power to take care of her. His mind set
up situations that needed solving and then he stepped in to help solve
them. Although Daddy often expressed
concern for my mother and her addiction problems (for those of you who don’t
know, Mother is not an addict), he also spent a great deal of time expressing
his love for her. One day on the phone,
he told my mother that he had an idea.
He wanted them to renew their vows.
“What do you think about that Ann?”
Another day, he told her that he wanted to dance with her. As he talked about wanting to hold her in his
arms, I was putting my hands over my ears thinking, TMI Daddy – too much
information. One of the sweetest
conversations I overheard them have was when they talked about how Daddy had
always told her he loved her. Mama
reminded him that he would tell her, “I’ll love you forever” and Daddy finished
it, “and one more day.” That
conversation occurred about a month ago, so even towards the end of his life,
Daddy remembered who mattered most to him.
What I would say to you my family--mama, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren-Daddy
loved you. When life took away most
everything else, it couldn’t take away his love. Be proud.
Know who you are. You are Basil
Clary’s beloved family.
