Making waves with my dad

I stepped out of the Austin airport and got slammed with a high 90° Fahrenheit fist-to-the-face. Fortunately, Savannah drove up quickly and I dove into her nifty Mustang convertible. We raced home so that I could then dive into her welcoming little back-patio pool. It was roughly the size of two cow troughs but, when it is August in Austin, one does not quibble.  I sank gratefully into a sitting hammock, happily accepted a cool beverage, and poked curiously at a passing, fabric-covered sphere as it floated by.  Savannah swatted my hand. "Don't touch that." Confused, I asked, "Why?" Savannah grimaced, "It's a slime-ball." I laughed, delighted. "I thought that was just an insult," I told her, "I had no idea it was an item that served an actual purpose!"

As always, when the Mosiman women are in a pool together, we must implement the Earl F. DeLong method of floating: Flat on our backs, chins jutting out with determination, and toes pointing heavenward. My father was strangely (but fiercely) proud of this maneuver of his and would show it off every time he entered the pool.

I have very conflicting feelings about my father these days.

He loved and protectively cared for my mother throughout their 67 years of marriage. She was always his first priority and he loved her above all things. The final few years of his life, though, my dad hid her deteriorating mental condition from us and failed to take measures to ensure her continued well-being should he not be able. 

And then, suddenly, he wasn't able.

Had we been informed, we might have had the where-with-all to make calm, wise decisions that would have transitioned my poor confused mother more gently into a world without my father. Instead, she was uprooted to an assisted living apartment to live like a rudderless college student. She is lonely. Bored. Despondent. Because of the relative isolation that was a product of living with my father, she lacks the social skills necessary to interact with others outside her small family group. Her eyesight is limited, cutting her off from reading and completing puzzles. Her muscle memory has faded so that working the phone, television, and microwave are baffling mysteries to her.

So, I am angry.

A lot.

Angry at him. Angry at myself for being angry at him. Angry because every time I think about my mother, I am weighed down by the millions of things I could be doing for her to make her life more pleasant but every time I implement any of those things, the effects are short-lived. I fail my mother every day. I feel helpless and frustrated and guilty and afraid. 

And angry.

Savannah apologized for the tiny bit of dirt on the floor of her pool. "Let's make a whirlpool," I suggested. She looked confused and then I remembered that, unlike me, she was not blessed with a backyard pool during her formative years. I suddenly flashed on my father, appearing after my friends and I had spent hours shrieking and splashing in our large, rectangular pool (with the translucent sky-blue fenced-in railing...the two-toned wood paneled station wagon of 1980s recreational water leisure) to spear-head the concluding event:  The whirlpool. He would jump in and lead the charge...his 5 foot 10 inch frame cutting through the water while, in his wake, a group of giggling girls skipped happily behind him. Each pass of the perimeter upped our pace so that we could take one step with one foot and land, like Superheroes, the length of the pool, with the other. Magical. My dad was tireless but we eventually let the current sweep us up until he would shout at us to turn around to battle the amazing whirlpool we had created. It was so much fun.

It was years later that I realized that his actual motive...his intent... was just to clean the pool.

Ahhh...intentions.

Sigh.

Intentions. Where, when I can find the strength to battle the current of anger...the riptide of repressed rage, I can see that my father's intentions were good. His intent was to love, protect, and care for my mom. And for most of their 67 years together, he was successful in his goal. And he also made some mistakes...the ramifications rippling across our family as we scrambled to stay afloat rather than getting sucked out to sea...sunk by the tsunami that he, of course, never intended. 

I can't forgive my father yet because, if I forgive him, then, I would have to also forgive myself. I have to have someone to blame when my mother refuses to eat, or doesn't drink. Someone to point the finger at when her TV goes on the fritz and she sits for hours, alone, in her empty, little apartment. Someone to hold accountable when she falls. When she feels sad. When she says she wants to die. I cannot commit to the shoulder-shrug philosophy of That's just how things are. You're doing your best. 

I'm still that same little girl, skipping along behind her daddy as he creates a whirlpool...only this time I am very aware of the intent. I am just trying to clean things up while keeping my head above water.