Yelling

When Old Men Can't Cry

Our “office” and my parents’ apartment were separated by two thin hollow core doorways, the kind that separate two hotel suites. Both could be closed and I could still hear my Dad yelling:

At the TV, “That goddam Obama is running this fucking country into the ground!”

At robo-callers, “Speak English dammit! I can’t unnerstand a goddam thing you’re saying and take me OFF your list and don’t call me back, I’m NOT INNERSTED!”

At Mom’s caregivers when he thought they were being neglectful or didn’t know how to put the sheets on a bed properly. It was not helpful that he was a medical corpsman in the Navy and a micro-manager. He thought she was bedridden because she wasn’t “trying hard enough” to move her stroke paralyzed legs, “You need to make her move her legs more! She’s not going to get stronger if you don’t make her move!”

At my Mom as he would try to feed her supper. He believed she was losing weight because we were not feeding her enough. She, resisting as his shaking hands rattled the spoon on her teeth and spilled food on her face, “You HAVE to eat dammit! EAT!”

We’d often have to intervene. “Dad, let me finish up for you. You gotta slow down and let her eat at her own pace. Yelling at her isn’t helping…” He would stomp out of the room. The 15 second event memory dementia window was still in effect then. Mom would look at him and say, “Asshole.”

Some of it was bearable because it was old geezer “Get off my lawn” kind of funny stuff. Most of it was soul wearying. It was hard to live under the dark, oppressive spirit of his anger that pervaded the household.

It was spirit-breaking when the anger was directed at us.

Both my wife and I worked during the day. It took nearly three years for my Dad to realize a part time care giver was not enough help. He could not care for Mom by himself if we were both gone. He hated writing checks for caregivers. As much as he hated spending money, the bottom line was, he hated changing diapers more. He would not do it, not for his children, nor for his wife.

The caregivers left about 5:00pm then we were “on duty” for supper, bedtime and overnight care.

After months of “night shift” we decided to take a night off. The caregiver said she would stay late and feed, medicate and change Mom for night time so we wouldn’t have to do it when we got home. She would do it for “straight time”, so it would be about 75.00.

I told my Dad we were going out, Beatrice would stay and take care of Mom’s night time stuff.

“What are you going out for?”

“We haven’t been out in months. We just need a night out for a change.”

His hand was shaking, his fingertips drumming the dining room tabletop. He looked at Beatrice and she said, “It’ll be fine, Jess, they need a night out”, then looked at me and said, “Go on.”

I closed the door behind me.

I heard my Dad yell. “What the hell do they need a fucking night off for? They don’t do shit around here!” At dinner my wife cried.

I told my sister about it. She called my Dad and backed us up. We needed time, caring for them on top of working was, in fact, “doing shit”, and he could afford it. He finally settled in to the routine of us going out a couple times a month. Then we entered the season of Lent and Holy Week. My wife was the choir director and I was a chanter.

I pared back my schedule of services I would attend to a “Lenten/Holy Week bare minimum” so I could stay home with Mom because my wife was “essential personnel” and would have to attend all the services. I anticipated my Dad’s reaction.

“We’re starting Lent and Easter season. We’ll be going to more church services in the evenings. Peggy has to be at all of them, I’ll only be going to some so I can stay home and take care of Mom. Since it’s church stuff, I’ll pay Beatrice for her extra hours so you don’t have to…”

“Goddam church is one thing, when it takes over your life that’s another,” he said.

“Well, it helps. And Mom will be taken care of and I’m paying for it. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

“I don’t know who needs that much church…”

I wanted to say, “We do because we have to deal with you”. I said instead, “I guess we do….”

I understood. None of it was about us “not doing shit”, or needing a “date night”, nor was it about “church”. It was about them being left alone and having to be cared for, “baby sat” by “adults”. He knew he was at our mercy, without us they’d both be in a nursing home, living in separate units. He had to take what we gave whether he thought it was enough or not. I know he was angry about being dependent, helpless, and obliged. It was all the things he despised in other people he always considered “weak”. He had lost the helm of his ship, we were ultimately in control. He was forcibly caged in by old age, declining health, financial realities, and an invalid wife who broke her back on his watch. And he was angry.

He couldn’t aim his rage at us directly. Nor do I think he aimed it consciously nor purposefully at anything in particular. It was a scattershot of rage into the universe that was his enemy and some of it hit our peripheral targets.

But even an unintentional scattered shot outside a personal bullseye still wounds.