No...I do not need therapy. This IS therapy.

This was a picture taken on a "good" day.  January 16th. When I was still blind as to what was coming. I didn't realize how truly skeletal my dad looked until I sent the picture to my girls in California to "reassure" them and instead, ending up horrifying them with his condition. Two months later, he wouldn't even be able to sit up straight in bed.

I have a LOT of anger.

My friend Sarah is a good "feel your feelings" type of gal as I struggle to process the nightmare and residual effects of the last three months. Knowing that I can barely light a candle, she took my threats to raze buildings very lightly:

Sarah:  Arson is a very healthy way to deal with grief. Is it possible that under the mad, you are just so sad? But I mean, definitely burn shit down if you want to and I'll be your alibi.

A week later...

Amy:  It's time for you to remind me that hatred and fury can't power me forever.

Sarah:  Well, actually, it's still the first week after the funeral so this is the "Any idea you have is therapeutic and a healthy and normal expression of grief and I support all of your ideas except the ones that violate federal law" zone

Sarah:  Anger is Step Two in the grieving process. So really, you're just quite advanced--moved through Step One in a matter of days.

Amy:  I fucking hate the steps and refuse to be categorized into phases of grief. I am NOT the moon, for Pete's sake.

Amy:  What was Step One?

Sarah:  I think Step One was "angrily railing against prescribed psychological paths established by experts in the field."

Sarah:  Or denial. You aren't really much of a denial person. You are a big "meet whatever comes head on" person so I didn't actually expect that step to be a long one for you. 

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I am angry.

I'm angry that all the confusion, uncertainty, and choreographed control of Covid so frightened my parents that they used it as a reason to bar my entry from their home for nine months because I'm a school teacher...robbing me of precious time to be annoyed by my Dad's political posturing as we played euchre. I am angry that, upon leaving the hospital after his fall, my dad was able to walk, supported, 50 to 100 feet, but the fourteen day Covid protocols made it so he couldn't leave his room at the rehab center...fourteen days that would set him back irreparably. I'm not sure if my dad ever actually left his room in the rehab center.

I am angry that it took an outside source, an in-take nurse from an assisted living facility we were considering, to review Dad's condition and point out a host of problems that we should have seen for ourselves but we foolishly, naively, trusted the "experts" instead to address.  Sound familiar?

I am angry that, instead of visiting my dad and trying to brighten his day, I entered his room like a military staff sergeant, taking inventory of his surroundings, his bedding, his curtains, and his waste basket...right down to the color of his t-shirts to see if it had been changed recently. Was his bedding wet? Were there any empty calorie-boosting drink containers in the trash? Were his socks on? Was he wearing pants? I would paw through his tangled sheets like a prairie dog, to get at his feet to check his heels. I became obsessed when I noticed his ankle bones grinding against each other. I'd raid the linen closet, disgusted each time because it was spelled wrong, to place a rolled up towel between my dad's poor painful feet.  I'd rub lotion on his feet and massage them when he admitted that he couldn't feel his toes.

I'm angry that my dad was not always afforded basic human dignity. When I noticed him chomping his partial like a bit, I asked him to pop it out into a container of water and about retched at what immediately rose to the surface. As I cheerfully scrubbed it in the sink, singing, "Splish, splash, Dad's partial is taking a bath," I casually asked my father when was the last time he'd brushed his teeth and he couldn't remember. I immediately added that to my inventory list. 

I'm angry that a doctor would question how I knew that my dad was experiencing frequent and excruciating back spasms when I expressed strong concerns about my father's quality of care. I'm angry that being appreciative and kind wasn't working and that my use of the work "fuck" increased exponentially. I'm angry that the same doctor would point to a one pound weight gain as proof of improvement. "My dad is not a fucking infant," I snarled in response. 

I'm angry that I was invisible. Which meant that everyone who was in need of care or who was advocating for the care of others was probably just as ignored. I poetically fancied myself a gunslinger, standing in the dusty, deserted street at high noon, demanding pain killers for my dad who was begging for relief and often, death. Gandalf, on the bridge with his staff planted, bellowing, "You shall not pass," as the promised twenty minutes turned into thirty, then forty as staff slipped silently past me in the hall, like I was a ghost.

I'm angry that my mother, who was letting my dad crush her hand as he battled spasm after spasm ("Are you SURE it's a spasm?") watched me fight my way off the floor where I was kneeling by Dad's bed, to stand and video tape his torture before stomping into the nurse's station to hold my phone in front of them, tears streaming down my face, as I begged them to come. "How much longer does my mother have to witness this?" I screamed, thrusting my phone forward. I'm angry that my mother had to wonder what I was doing afterwards, when we'd gotten Dad settled for the night, after I'd helped her into the car, and then paused behind it to throw up, before getting in to drive us home. 

I'm angry that I can't delete that video from my phone.

I'm angry that my father would dismissively wave his food tray away and that they would sometimes just turn to carry it out with me chasing after them.

I'm angry that I didn't trust that my father's pain was just too great to attempt a "transfer." As I helped the PT to bear my dad's weight, holding my foot firmly in front of his as we worked to move him from the bed to the chair, my heart disintegrated as he sobbed, whimpering for help. My father cried the entire fifteen minutes that we tortured him and I could hear that fucking doctor's smug voice in my head, "Well, that's what you asked for." I never demanded physical therapy again. 

I am angry that, despite notes that I posted, staff would close my dad's curtains so that this man, who lived by the clock, grew confused and disoriented, never knowing whether it was day or night. I am angry, that in his fear, he would call my mother at 2 in the morning, asking where she was. Where he was. 

I am currently being crushed beneath the weight of my anger. But that is okay...because the anger eclipses my profound grief and guilt. Because, in the end, the one that I am angriest with is me.