Forgotten Tomorrows Crazy Todays (Ch 13 & 14)

Chapter 13

The understanding between me and my dad which had led to the calm in the house began to break down again at the beginning of February.

My father had started to have “I want to go home” days again. The trips to the “store” became longer and longer. He also started wandering into my bedroom at night again. I woke up several times with him coming out of the master bathroom in the middle of the night again. One night, after a particularly intense day, I woke up to a small “beep” from the alarm system, which indicated that someone had opened a door or a window in the house. I knew immediately that it must be my father. I heard rummaging at the front door, which was connected directly to the same wall as my bedroom door. I sat bolt upright and screamed, “Dad, don’t open that door! You’ll set off the alarm!” Luckily, all the doors were equipped with the thick metal safety latches. My father wasn’t able to figure out the lock. This gave me time to turn off the alarm with the panic button before the sirens went off and jump out of bed. When I got to the front door, my father was standing in the foyer desperately pulling at the door. All he was wearing were pajama bottoms, slippers and a black felt fedora. Always stylish my dad is.

As soon as he saw me he said, “I’m getting out of here! You can’t keep me here! I’m going home!” I tried reasoning with him. I explained to him that his house in Florida had been sold and that he now lived in Texas with me and my family and that we loved him very much. That sent him into a tirade of insults and accusations about me and my family stealing his money, and my children (3 and 8) who wanted to kill him. He continued to pull on the door, as I tried to reassure him. As a last ditch effort, I explained to him that he could not leave the house at that moment because it was 2 a.m. and all he was wearing was pajamas and that it was cold outside. At this, my father seemed to come to his senses, at least a bit. He let go of the door and allowed me to walk him back to his bedroom. Crisis averted. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

After getting my father settled back into his room, I went and reset the alarm system and went back to my room. I recounted what happened to a now awake Mike, who had heard the commotion but had been unable to hear exactly what had been said. After Mike and I talked and my father’s bedroom light went out, I drifted uneasily back to sleep. About thirty minutes later, I was awakened again to the “beep” of the alarm system and fumbling at the front door. This time I didn’t scream, I just hit the off alarm button on the panic alarm and jumped out of bed. When I got to the front door, my father had changed clothes. He was now fully dressed in dress pants and a dress shirt, but he still had his slippers on. Again, when he saw me, he went into a rant about not being locked up and wanting to go home. Once again, I tried to explain to him why that wasn’t possible, but to no avail. He then demanded to speak to the police. I tried to explain to him what time it was and his living situation, but he was adamant.

By now, I was so exhausted I could feel my own rationale slipping. Fed up, I went and got the house phone. Mike was now awake too and sitting up in bed watching our exchange in the foyer through the doorway. When I tried to hand my father the phone, he wouldn’t take it. He just kept trying to get the latch on the front door open while telling me that I needed to call the police. I’m not sure if it was the late hour or the broken sleep or the absurdity of the situation or what, but when he said that, I started to laugh hysterically. My father wants me to call the police on myself for, in his mind, trying to hold him hostage and my kids wanting to kill him. I told him no, I wasn’t calling the police and that if he wanted to speak to the police then he needed to call them himself. I set the phone down on a nearby end table and went and sat down on the loveseat in the living room. My hope was that the phone would distract him away from the door. And it worked, if only for a moment.

My father walked away from the door and picked up the phone and then just stared at it. He didn’t know how to call the police. Instead of hitting buttons and trying to call himself, my father turned to me and asked me how to call the police. I told him that if he wanted the police, then he was going to have to figure out how to call them on his own; again hoping that he would get discouraged and just give up and go to bed. In hindsight, that was probably not the best idea, but I was tired and grumpy and had to get up at 6 a.m. to get Dayton off to school. My father continued to insist that I call the police for him and I continued to refuse. We were at a stalemate.

The standoff was broken when my father looked at me with an evil grin and said, “Well maybe I’ll go mess with the kids. Then you’ll have to call the police,” and headed in the direction of the boys’ room.

I stood up intending on blocking his path, but before I could get in his way, Mike was up and out of the bedroom standing in front of my father. Up until now, Mike had let me handle all the issues that came up regarding my father. This threat to our children had changed the stakes. “What do you mean MESS with the kids!?!? You aren’t going to do anything to my kids, Wes! I won’t let that happen!” My father seemed rattled by Mike’s sudden appearance, but stood his ground, while avoiding Mike’s eyes and looking at me defiantly. “I don’t know,” my father replied. “But I’ll do something to get the cops,” he finished, a little less aggressively.

I have no idea what he was thinking but I suspect that he was weighing the option of having to take on Mike instead of me. Mike is an average sized guy at 5’11” and 155lbs. and although my father has always been a bit of a scrapper, I think he knew, even in his current state of mind, that if he were to try and carry out his threat, the odds were not in his favor.

“You will NOT go anywhere near my children!” Mike said, then added, “If you want to call the police dial 911. But Wes, if you don’t even know how to call the police how do you think you’re going to be able to make it all the way to Florida from here on your own?” When Mike finished talking he turned and went back into the bedroom, sat down on the bed and lit a cigarette. We generally don’t smoke in the house, because of the kids, but at this point his nerves were frazzled. I also think he didn’t want to go into the garage and leave me in the house alone with my father. When Mike walked off, my father went back to trying to open the front door. He finally managed to get the top latch off and started to head out the door, phone in hand, but the locked screen door impeded his progress. I jumped off the couch and ran into the foyer yelling, “Dad, you can’t take the phone with you!”

He turned to face me with that evil grin again and said, “Why, you don’t want me to tell them?”

“I don’t care who you talk to or what you tell them! You just can’t take the phone out of the house.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not a cell phone, it’s a house phone and it won’t work outside for one,” I lied. “And two, ‘cause it’s my phone and I said you can’t take it.” My father, seeming to ignore what I had just said, turned back to trying to get the screen door open. At this point, I made a stupid move. I realize it now, but at the time I was tired and angry and just wanted all the nonsense to stop. I went over to my father and grabbed the phone. Now we stood in the foyer having a tug of war with the phone. My father began yelling at me that I didn’t want him to call the police again and that I was keeping him locked up, all the while I’m trying to wrestle the phone out of his hands. During the struggle, I maneuvered myself between my father and the front door, but could not wrangle the phone away from him. After several minutes of this nocturnal dance, I finally let go of the phone, telling my father to just call the police already. He dialed 911 and began pacing the short foyer, while I blocked the doorway.

When the 911 dispatcher answered the phone, my father stopped pacing to talk. I took advantage of this to close and lock the front door and then went back into the living room and sat down on the couch. My father told the dispatcher that he was being locked up and that he wanted to go home. The dispatcher must have asked who was keeping him locked up because my father began to stammer, “My, my, my…” while gesturing in my direction.

I finally yelled, “I’m his daughter,” loudly.

At this my father got excited and said, “Yeah, yeah she’s my daughter,” into the phone. He then said that there were two of us and that we tried to keep him from calling. Tried to keep him from calling? Hell, we did everything but dial the damn phone for him! I’m even helping to explain his freaking delusion. I’m not sure what the dispatcher asked next. I assume that he/she asked for a description of Mike and me because what my father said next was, “She’s got on a white shirt and black things, you know.” He meant shorts. “She’s about forty-five, around five foot four and one hundred and fifty pounds.”What!?!? Forty-five…five foot four…one hundred and fifty pounds!?!?!? Okay Dad, say what you want about me, but don’t make me older, shorter and fatter than I am! I actually laughed out loud. Next, my father stepped into the foyer and looked at Mike sitting on the bed and said into the phone, “Yeah, he looks like a hunter.” What in the world!?!? What part of my bald, goateed, earring wearing husband, sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette in his underwear, makes him look like a hunter? I had to laugh again.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I got up and opened it. Two Arlington police officers were at the door. There was a young white male officer and a middle aged black male officer. Man, this is starting to become embarrassing. By the time this is all over, every cop in Arlington will have visited my house at least once. I let the officers in, and the white officer immediately asked what the problem was. I pointed to my father and said, “Talk to him, he’s the one that made the phone call,” I then turned and went back to sit on the couch. As I sat down, Mike entered the room in a pair of shorts and sat down with me on the couch. The officers acknowledged Mike and then turned to my father. The white officer asked my father if he was still on the phone with dispatch.

My father said, “Yes.” The officer asked my father to speak to the dispatcher. My father tried to hand the officer the phone but as he did he pulled on the bottom of the phone which popped the battery cover off the back of the phone; the nine volt inside disconnected and fell on the floor. I got up and tried to put the phone back together quickly, but it was too late, the call had been lost.

As I went to sit back down, the white officer asked my father his name and what seemed to be the problem. My father told them his name and then went into a fresh diatribe about how we were keeping him locked up, how he wanted to go home and that we wouldn’t let him. The officer turned to me and I gave him a short explanation of the situation, starting with the fact that my father had lost his home in Florida and had no place else to go. I then explained that my father had recently been diagnosed with Dementia and had earlier tried to leave the house in his pajamas insisting that he was going home. At this, my father went ballistic. He started yelling that he did not have Dementia, that that was something that I had made up so I could tell people that he was crazy to keep him locked up and take his money. At this point Mike piped in, telling my father that we hadn’t made anything up and that the VA doctor had made the diagnosis. Mike went on to tell him that we had taken him in and saved him from ending up on the streets when he lost his house. He also reminded him that, in fact, he had called our house and asked me to come and get him when he was scared and hallucinating in his house in Florida. My father shot back that he had not called us and that there was nothing wrong with him, that he was just fine and didn’t need any help. Mike, now beyond tired and irritated, yelled back, “Wes, if there’s nothing wrong with you, then why couldn’t you even make a simple phone call to the police? I had to tell you how to dial 911!” I touched Mike’s leg to try and calm him. The officer then asked my father if he had any money.

My father said, “No, she’s stealing my money and keeping me here.” Now it was my turn to get angry.

I stared yelling, “That’s not true, Dad. You don’t have any money to steal. And as a matter of fact, I know that you do have at least twenty dollars. I know that because I put it in your dresser myself yesterday. But if money is the issue, I’ve got thirty dollars in my purse. I will gladly give it to you right now if you will just go back to bed and let everyone go back to sleep!” I finished standing, preparing to get my purse. The evil grin of triumph appeared on my father’s face again.

He took a step toward me and said, “Yeah give me the money.”

The white officer stepped in between us and said, “No, no, don’t do that.”

At this point, I was standing there, shaking with anger and frustration. When the officer stepped in between us, I began to talk to myself in my head and try and get a grip. Leslie, calm down. You know this isn’t his fault. Everyone is tired, and yelling is not helping matters at all. Think about it Les, he no longer knows your name. He can’t read anymore. He’s hard pressed to have any kind of conversation with anybody but you because he no longer makes sense unless he’s angry. BREATHE…

I then turned to the officer and told him that I could prove that my father had been evicted from his home because I had paperwork from the state in my bedroom. I also told him that I had documentation of my father’s Dementia diagnosis as well. At this, my father said, “Oh yeah, you don’t have any proof!”

I turned to my father and calmly said, “Dad, you have a copy of the paperwork from the VA in your room. It says you have Dementia and high blood pressure, among other things, whether you want to admit it or not.”

“Yeah, where!?” My father challenged. I turned and walked into my father’s bedroom and got the paperwork from the VA that I knew was hidden in my father’s dresser. I came back into the room and handed the paperwork to the white officer, pointing out where the diagnosis was. While the officer read the paperwork, I went into my bedroom and got the papers from the Florida Tax Assessor and the paper from the bank which held the defaulted mortgage on the house which stated the intended sale of the house the previous October. I came back and handed those to the officer as well and went and sat back down next to Mike. The officer read over each paper and then handed them to his partner. As the officers tried to hand the papers back to me, my father seemed to panic. He started yelling that I had made it all up. The white officer calmly told my father that he had the papers in his hands and that they were official and he would allow him to read them if he liked. My father made a half-hearted gesture of glancing at the papers, then waved them off and went back to ranting. The officer leaned over and handed me back the papers. The white officer tried again to calm my father. He told him that no matter what the situation, it was late and there was no where he could go at 3:30 in the morning.

My father ignored the officer and instead turned to me and said, “Yeah, well tell them how you got me here!” Both officers looked at me confused. I shrugged my shoulders and looked at my father quizzically. My father turned back to the officers and started speaking hurriedly, “Yeah, we were at a party and they were stealing and then she said “Hurry up” and we had to run and get on the boat and come here. I thought she was okay at first, but you can see.” He finished gesturing at me.

The white officer asked my father where “HOME” was, to which my father said, “Chicago.” The officer looked at me; I shook my head and said quietly, “No, he was living in Florida. You can look at the paper work and check. We haven’t lived in Chicago since I was in high school, and I’m thirty-four.”

“I meant Florida.” My father yelled. “And where has she been? She hasn’t been around then she comes and makes me come here.”

“Dad, I was just in Florida a year ago in November with the whole family to visit. Remember? Me, Mike, and the kids were all there.” I said.

“Oh yeah, and you should have seen what she was….But I wasn’t going for that!”  Now what the hell is he talking about? I went to Florida to do stand up. God, I’m so tired. Make this stop so I can go back to bed!

I tried one last time to get through to my father. “Dad, we are not trying to hurt you. We are not trying to lock you up, or steal your money. We love you and that is why you’re here. There’s no place else for you to go and we didn’t want you to wind up on the streets.”

“I can take care of myself!” he yelled back at me.

I ignored him and went on, “I am trying to take care of you just like you took care of grandma.”

“Your grandmother hated you!” He screamed at me.

I kept going, “Your grandkids love you very much and don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

“Oh yeah you should see them! They’re something else! Running around!” My father said angrily.

Mike, who had been sitting quietly through most of this, was roused by the insult to the kids. “What about the kids!?! They’ve done nothing but love their grandfather and you go and threaten them tonight! Don’t talk about my kids!”

“Alright, enough of this!” The black officer finally chimed in. The white officer then asked about the threat to the children. I told him what my father had said earlier about “messing” with the children in order to get the police to the house. The officer asked my father what he had meant by MESS with the kids. My father mumbled something that didn’t make any sense. The officer told my father that he needed to leave the kids out of all of this. He then told him again that it was late and that if he wanted to leave in the morning or try and find a new place to live, that he was sure Mike and I would do what we could for him. Both officers then turned to leave, thinking this would be the end of it. WRONG!

“She won’t let me send the thing off!” My father blurted out. Again the officer’s exchanged confused looks and turned to me. I shrugged again and looked at my father.

“What thing Mr. Martin.?”

“The thing that changes colors for the dead people!” My father said in earnest. Both officers looked at me even more confused.

Oh lord, here we go! “It’s an at home stool sample that the VA gave him. Don’t ask.” I said shaking my head. This has now gotten way beyond sad. I wish that there was something that I could do. He has no idea how ridiculous he sounds. Both officers shook their own heads and told my father to go back to bed as they headed toward the door.

My father wasn’t done. “She keeps me locked in here and won’t let me have anything and she’s trying to kill me!” He yelled aggressively shaking his fist at me.

I started to snap again. “Won’t let you have anything!?!? What are you talking about!?! We paid your bills while you were still in Florida. We bought you food. We paid to get you here. We’ve bought you clothes. There’s an entire container of chocolate muffins on the counter we bought just for you! Not to mention the croissants, the five gallons of ice cream in the freezer and who knows what else in the kitchen! Why do you think we include you whenever we go shopping? So that we make sure to get you stuff that you want and like!” I said exhausted. “If I was trying to kill you, I sure as hell wouldn’t have turned my house and my life upside down trying to make you comfortable!” I finished. My father just stared at me.

The officers told my father again that he needed to go to bed and that he could deal with any issues he had in the morning. This time the officers waited for my father to head in the direction of his room before turning to leave. I watched as my father went into the hall, opened the boy’s bedroom door, closed it, turned, found his room and went inside. Mike and I thanked the officers and walked them to the door. Once outside, the white officer asked if there was anything else he could do for me. I told him no, that we had gotten used to it. He then asked if I wanted to come outside and talk. I asked him if there was anyway that they could take my father somewhere to try and get him some help. He said no, which I knew he would. I told him that since that was the case, there was nothing to talk about and that I was tired and just wanted to get some sleep. He said that he understood. As I closed the door, I caught a glimpse of helplessness and pity on his face. Or maybe I just imagined it. I was exhausted.

Once back in our bedroom that night/morning, Mike and I decided that it would probably be wise to put a lock on the kids’ door to prevent my father from doing them any harm, accidentally or intentionally. I explained this to the kids on the way to school that morning and told them that we would now be locking them in from their side of the door, in their room at night and that if they heard anything outside their door at night, that they were not to open the door unless it was me, Mike or the police, or fire department. This is starting to get out of hand. I don’t know how long we can continue to live like this.

We didn’t hear from my father until about 10 a.m. the next morning. I was home alone, waiting for Mike to get back from Home Depot. As soon as my father got up, I realized that he had not let go of his anger from our last encounter. I don’t even know if he had slept at all. He came out of his room fully dressed, complete with hat and winter coat. He refused my offer to make him breakfast. He said that he wanted to get out of there, so as had become the routine, I opened the front door and let him go. Mike came home a few minutes later and we took advantage of my father’s flight from the house to get the lock put on the kids’ door without his knowledge. About an hour later, just as I started to worry that I would have to call the police to look for my father, he knocked on the door. He came in and went straight back to his bedroom and did not come back out until dinner.

Things stayed tense from that day on. My father started to argue with me whenever I tried to remind him about showering, so I went back to letting it go until someone noticed his odor. He also stopped thinking of Mike as his buddy, and did not speak to anyone except Ian, other than to argue with me, answer basic questions or to say a quiet, “thank you” after being given food. The tension in the house was thick enough to cut with a plastic spork. A few weekends later, Mike and I decided to try and cut the tension by breaking the normal routine and getting everyone out of the house. We decided to get some fast food and do some shopping at Home Depot for the house and yard and to take everyone on the outing. My father was having a bad odor day, so we started off badly, with an argument about his need to shower before we left. After my father showered and dressed, we all piled in the car and asked the kids where they wanted to eat. They said Burger King. I asked my father if that was okay, and he mumbled something that I took as agreement and we went.

Once at Burger King, everyone ordered their food, my father with my help, and we sat down to eat. We had been sitting at the table for only a few minutes when my dad started clearing his throat and saying, “Hey, hey, I have an agreement.” No one but me had heard him, so I spoke up and told them that my father had something that he wanted to say. My dad turned to Mike and the kids.

“I’ve decided that I am going to get some perfume!” he declared enthusiastically.

Everyone just looked at each other confused. “That’s good, Wes.” Mike said and then everyone went back to eating. This seemed to upset my father and he went back to eating quietly. What was that all about!? Was he trying to say that because I keep telling him that he needs to shower when he starts to smell bad that he has decided to get some cologne so that he won’t stink?

When we had all finished and were heading back out to the car, I pulled Mike back and whispered in his ear what I thought. He agreed that that was the only thing that made any sense. When we got into the car, the kids asked where we were going next and Mike told them Home Depot. As my father got into the car, he pulled a twenty out of his pocket and tried to hand it to Mike telling him when we get there to go inside and get him some perfume. As we drove, Mike explained to my father that he didn’t think that they carried cologne in Home Depot and that it was mainly a store for home repairs and gardening. My father seemed upset with this answer and silently stuffed the money back into his coat pocket. Once at Home Depot, we all got out of the car and headed for the entrance, everyone except my father. I turned around and realized that he was milling about in the parking lot near the car. I went back to where he was standing and told him that we were all going inside. He said, “No thank you,” and wandered off in the direction of some of the plants being displayed outside the garden section. Mike had stopped outside the entrance when he heard me speak to my father. I walked over and told him what had just happened and told him to take Ian inside with him, while Dayton and I pretended to shop outside so that I could keep an eye on my father. Anyone who didn’t know us might have thought we were acting out a scene for some bad spy movie. My father shuffling about the plants on one side of the building, looking over his shoulder at me every few minutes, while I pretended to be talking to Dayton about flowers at the other end of the store; all while stealing glances at my father from over my son’s shoulder. It must have looked ridiculous. When Mike came out, I wasn’t really sure if I should confront my father or not, so instead I just headed to the car with Mike and the kids. My father surprisingly followed and got in the car without prompting. On the way home, Mike asked my father if he wanted him to stop at the store and get him some cologne. My father said yes, but from the tone of his voice I could tell his excitement about the idea had fizzled. Mike stopped at Albertson’s on the way home and after refusing my father’s money, went inside and bought him some cologne.

As soon as we got home, my father went straight into his room. When he came out he immediately said that he wanted to “get out of here.” As usual, we let him go.  We waited for over an hour before I called the police. When the police brought him back, they said they had found him walking west down the main road in our neighborhood. My father was furious, but didn’t say anything. He went straight back into his room and did not come out again until morning.

The next day, as I was getting the kids ready for school, my father came out of his room. I asked him if he wanted some breakfast; he angrily said no he wasn’t going to eat anything that I gave him. Oh crap. This is not good. I then asked him if he at least would like some juice. Again he said that he didn’t want anything from me, especially with HIM. And he pointed to Ian. How in the world could he be mad at Ian? “Dad, what do you mean especially not with him? What did Ian do?” I asked totally confused.

“You know what he did. God damn it. He’s fucking poisoning the food and stuff. I’m not touching that shit. You’re trying to kill me. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Dad, he’s three years old! What’s wrong with you? You can’t swear at the kids like that!” I screamed. I told both boys to go into their room and watch TV and I’d come get them in a minute.

“Oh, I can’t swear at them. Why the hell not!?!” He said with the evil grin.

“Because they are little kids, and they are MY kids and because I said so!” I screamed.

“I’m getting out of here! I’m not letting them kill me damn it.”

“Dad, knock off the swearing! You want to leave, fine there’s the door! But I’m just going to have to call the police again to bring you back because you cannot walk to Florida” I yelled pointing at the garage.

“That’s what you think!” he finished and brushed past me toward the garage door. My father stopped once in the garage not knowing what to do with the closed garage door. I walked past him, hit the button to open the door and walked back into the house. It’s not even 7 a.m. I can’t keep doing this! This has gotten way out of control. I’m having to lock my kids in their rooms at night. I haven’t slept well in months and now he’s swearing at the kids. I have got to stop this nightmare!

I put the kids in the car and took them to school. When I got home, I called 911 and explained what happened. At about 10 a.m., an officer knocked on my door with my father. He was breathing heavy and walked straight past me grouchily and into his room. I didn’t even ask the officer where she found him; I just thanked her and shut the door. At around one o’clock, I knocked on my father’s door and asked him if he wanted some lunch. He shouted no that he didn’t want anything from me, through the closed door, so I left him alone. Mike came home at about two thirty and I explained what had happened earlier during the day. At three o’clock, I took a break and went and got the kids. A few minutes after I got home, my father came out of his room. I asked him if he wanted something to eat or drink, he answered me in the same vein of his morning tirade, profanity and all. This time, it was Mike who jumped on him for his language. I don’t remember what was said. At this point, I had had enough and it didn’t matter. My father and Mike’s quarrel ended the same way mine had that morning, with my father walking out the garage door headed for, “HOME.” That’s it! I’m done.  I realize he’s sick and can’t help himself, but I can’t have this going on in my house anymore! I didn’t even wait to call 911 this time. I called as soon as the garage door closed. When the police, two cars this time, came back with my father twenty minutes later, I told them all that had happened that day and that there was no way I could have him in my house anymore, but I didn’t know what to do. The officer told me that legally, since I was not my father’s guardian there was really nothing that I could do. Since I accepted him into my house, he was my responsibility. I expressed my concern for the kids and the fact that he didn’t want to be in my house anymore than I wanted him there at that point and asked if there was any agency that he could think of that might be able to help.

After thinking a minute, the officer told me the only thing that he could possibly do was to try and talk my father into checking himself in to the psych ward at John Peters Smith Hospital and that they could possibly hold him for awhile there. I told him anything he could do would be helpful.

Together, we quickly came up with a plan. The officer would talk up JPS as a place where my father could, “Get away from ME,” and that he would gladly take him, even though I didn’t want him to go. I thanked him and he went to the police car where my father was sitting, cursing about me to the female officer. The officer spoke to my father for a brief moment nodded at me and switched my father to his patrol car. Once the officer and my father had rounded the corner, the female officer said that we could follow her to JPS and speak to the doctors once they got my father checked in. I thanked her and went and told Mike, who was in the house with the kids, what was going on. We gathered up the kids, got in the car and followed both officers. The other officer had waited around the corner in his car for some reason.

As we approached the emergency entrance of the hospital, the female officer flagged us to park in another area to avoid my father seeing us. As we passed, unfortunately my father looked up and saw us drive by. I saw as we passed my father begin to talk animatedly to the officer driving the vehicle he was in. Oh great!

Mike parked in the visitor’s lot in an area where we could still see the emergency entrance. The officer driving my father took him inside the hospital, while the other officer left. We sat in the car waiting for the other officer to come out and tell us what to do.

I remember sitting in the car thinking that I should feel bad about what I was getting ready to do, but I didn’t. I had tried everything that I could think of, for months, to try and get through to my father and couldn’t. I realized that it wasn’t his fault, but at that moment I didn’t care. I was angry at him for the way he behaved in front of the kids. I was angry that he hadn’t told me sooner that he was having a problem so that we might have prevented the last few months. I was worn out from lack of sleep and walking on eggshells. I was done. At that moment, I could have walked away from my father and never seen him again and would have been fine with it. That’s actually what I was hoping would happen. I just didn’t want to deal with him or the situation anymore.

As I sat contemplating all of this, the officer that had driven my father to the hospital walked up to the side of the car from another entrance. He told us that my father had indeed seen us when we pulled in, but he had used that to reinforce the story that I was trying to keep him from coming here, which had worked perfectly. He then told us that he had left my father in the waiting room on the psych ward. He then handed me a business card for the doctor on the ward. He told me that the registration nurse had said for me to wait about a half an hour and then call up to the ward to speak to the doctor after she had seen my father. I thanked him again for all of his help and he left. I waited the half hour and called the number on the card. When the registration nurse answered the phone, I explained who I was and why I was calling. She told me that the doctor had not yet seen my father and to try back in another half hour. I thanked her, hung up and waited. I called in another thirty minutes and got the exact same answer.

When this all began, it was a little after 4 p.m., it was now closing in on 6:30 p.m. and the kids began to complain about being hungry. I called the psych ward back and asked if I had to be at the hospital to talk to the doctor or if this was something I could take care of over the phone. The registration nurse told me that the doctor would definitely want to talk to me in person. I asked her if I would have time to drive home to drop off my family and come back in my own car. She asked where I lived and I told her Arlington. She said that would be no problem since the doctor was really busy and wouldn’t probably see my father for at least another hour. What? You’ve been telling me to call back in a half hour for over an hour. Is this place staffed by the VA?

We drove back home and I jumped into my car and drove the twenty minutes back to the hospital alone. I called as soon as I got back, to see if the doctor had seen my father yet. The registration nurse told me, “no,” my father had not been seen yet and to try back in an hour. Since it was now closing in on 7:30 and I was starting to get hungry myself, I asked the registration nurse if there would be any chance that my father might see me if I were to go inside the hospital to the McDonald’s and get something to eat. She told me no, that the psych ward was located on the seventh floor, so I would be safe. I thanked her, hung up and went inside. I went into the McDonalds, ordered food, ate and waited. I called back up to the ward after an hour and was again told that my father had not been seen and to try back in an hour. This process went on, over and over again with the same result until around 10:30. When I called again and was told once more that my father still hadn’t been seen, I told the nurse that I had been waiting for over four hours and asked if there was anyway my father could be seen soon. She again told me that the doctor was very busy and suggested that I go home and she would have the doctor call me as soon as my father was seen. WHAT!?!?! I asked FOUR HOURS AGO if I could handle all of this over the phone and you told me that I needed to wait because the doctor DEFINITELY needed to speak to me in person. I’ve been sitting here for four fucking hours for no reason! What the hell is wrong with you people!?! I thanked the nurse, hung up and went home.

When I got home, I got a glass of wine and got in bed waiting for the doctor to call me while discussing the day’s events with Mike and watching mindless television. At some point, the stress of the day must have taken over because the next thing I remember was waking up to the phone ringing. As Mike answered the phone, I looked at the clock, it was 2:45 a.m. Mike handed me the phone, saying it was the JPS Doctor. Holy shit 2:45 a.m.! I could still be sitting there. When I got on the phone, the doctor told me that she had examined my father and that she didn’t find anything psychologically wrong with him and since the ward was designated for psychologically unstable patients she wanted to release him. You have got to be kidding me! I briefly explained to the doctor what had been happening since my father had moved in with us, his diagnosis and what had brought him to the hospital in the first place. Her response was that since my father had checked himself into the hospital, if he wanted to check himself out, she needed to do so. She then told me that I needed to come and pick him up. Are YOU crazy!?! Have you not been listening to me!?! He doesn’t want to be here! I don’t want him here! I can’t have him here with the kids! And even if I did want him here, it’s almost 3 in the morning! I am not getting up and getting dressed to bring him back here at 3 a.m.!

I told the doctor basically that. Her response to this was to tell me that if I didn’t want to pick my father up, that she would send him to my house in a cab. Okay, now I know you’re crazy. You are going to send an aggressively agitated Dementia patient alone in a cab at 3 in the morning to a house that he tried to run away from three times in the last two days because you don’t find anything psychologically wrong with him!?!? He thinks my three year old is trying to poison him! He thinks we have thirteen bath rooms and we’re moving them! He gets locked in a bedroom that has no lock! He thinks everything on TV with a woman in it is Alias! How much more psychologically wrong can a person get!?!

Trying to remain calm, while wanting to jump through the phone and ring this woman’s neck, I told her that I didn’t think that this would be a good idea. I expressed my concern about him coming to my house at all, let alone, by himself in a cab. I asked her what was to prevent my father from telling the cab driver that he didn’t want to come to my house and wanted to go somewhere else. She assured me that she would give the cab driver explicit instructions. I then asked her what would happen if my father decided that he didn’t like those instructions and got violent with the cab driver? She stammered a bit and finally said that my father seemed fine and that she didn’t see this as a problem. He’s fine because he’s not here or being sent back here, you freaking moron! I again expressed my concern at her plan and told her that I needed to get up in a few hours to take my kids to school and really couldn’t afford to be waiting up for my father to come home in a cab. The doctor then said that she would talk to my father again and to wait up and she would call me back in a few minutes. HUH!?! What is talking to my father going to do? It’s not going to make him any less angry, or make him want to be here. This woman is nuts.

I hung up the phone and told Mike what she had said. I waited up for about ten minutes and when I got no call, I went back to sleep. It was a good thing that I did. With everything that had been going on, I had forgotten to set my alarm. I woke up at 8:30 realizing that I had over slept. I jumped up got the kids ready and took them both to school. When I got home I called JPS to find out what had happened. When the nurse answered, I explained the previous night’s events and asked what had happened. The nurse said that since it had been so late they had decided to let my father spend the night. Thanks for calling me. I sure am glad I didn’t listen to that stupid woman last night. I was thinking that when the nurse interrupted my thoughts by telling me that they would be checking my father out after he had eaten breakfast. Here we go again. I explained to this new nurse all that had been happening since my father came home and explained why he had gone to the ward in the first place. She said that she would talk to the doctor on the ward and have someone call me back. About an hour later, the nurse called back and again told me that the doctor told her that my father’s Dementia was not psychological and since he had voluntarily checked himself into the ward, if he wanted to leave, they legally had to let him out. So I asked, “Is he asking to be checked out?” The nurse said that my father was asking to go “home.” GOTCHA!

To this I asked, “So he’s been asking to go home?”

The nurse said, “Yes, he’s been asking to go home since he woke up this morning.”

I then said, “So, has he been asking to go “HOME” or has he been asking to come to MY home?” The nurse faltered at this question and I knew what was going on.

My father had been going on about going “HOME” just like he did at my house. I knew if I were to bring him home we would be right back where we had started the day before and I was not willing to go there anymore. The nurse finally recovered and said that my father had actually been requesting to go to my home. I knew she was lying and told her so. Flustered, the nurse again began to explain her legal obligation, but I cut her off…

“Look, my father does NOT want to be here. He wants to go HOME to his house in Florida which does not exist for him anymore, it’s been sold. He ran away three times over the last two days and I had to have the police bring him back. He’s been cursing at my kids and has even once threatened to harm them. The only place he has to go is my house and I cannot and will not have him here anymore, he’s possibly dangerous.” Again, the nurse tried to go into why she had to legally let my father out if he decided he wanted to go. I cut her off, again.

“Okay, put it this way, do you think if you were to just let him out of the hospital on his own that he could take care of himself?” I asked.

“Well no,” she answered.

“I’m not his legal guardian, so technically he is not my responsibility. He can NOT come back HERE and he has no where else to go. So, if you let him walk out the door and something happens to him it will be your liability, not mine. So, you can either keep him there and find some place to put him yourselves; OR you can keep him there until I find some place to put him. It’s your choice.” The nurse irritably told me that she would call me back and hung up.

About a half an hour later, the nurse called me back. She said that she had paperwork which could help me to get an emergency guardianship over my father which would make it legal for me to put my father into a nursing home. She also told me that she had gotten a list of nursing homes in the area that she would give me to help me find a place for my father. She told me that I could come pick up the paperwork at the hospital. Nice try. I told her that she could fax me the papers and gave her my fax number and hung up.

Once I got the papers, I called the phone number that had been included for the guardianship office and asked what I needed to do. I was told to fill out the papers and then given a fax number to send the completed forms. I then started calling nursing homes on the list to find a place for my father. I spoke to the admissions person at the first nursing home and gave a detailed explanation of my father’s situation and what led me to them. After asking me my father’s age, the woman on the phone told me that there was no way that her facility could take my father. She explained that with my father’s young age and good physical condition, it would be too dangerous for the other more elderly and frail patients to take him in. I thanked her, hung up and called the next home on the list. After giving them my explanation, I was again told that my father’s age, aggressive behavior, and physical condition would make it impossible for the home to take him. This went on over and over again with nursing home after nursing home throughout the day. Finally, at around 3:30, I called a nursing home called Garden Care Center, explained my situation to the administrator and waited to be told “no way” again. To my surprise and relief, the administrator (who told me her name was Hester) told me that her nursing home dealt with patients just like my father. She said that she would go to JPS personally and speak to my father and if she felt it was a match, she would have someone go and pick him up that day. I thanked her, gave her my call back information and hung up. I called the psych ward and told them what was happening. At around 5 p.m., the woman from Garden Care called and said that she had gone and met my father and that he had seemed pleasant and that she was sending someone over to pick him up right then. She told me that since it was already 5 p.m. I could bring my father’s things to the home the next day and fill out the admission forms. Thank you!

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how tightly wound I had been. It had taken me getting angry over my father’s behavior with the kids to have been able to do what I had just done. Once I knew my father was safe, the anger faded as quickly as it had come and was replaced by a huge wave of guilt and sadness. I actually sat down on the middle of the floor in my kitchen and cried. It’s over, but this is not how this was all supposed to end. I know that I promised that I would not put you in a home, Dad, but you gave me no choice. What else was I supposed to do? I have to think of the kids. I am so sorry. I’m sure you hate me now even more than you did yesterday. I hope you can forgive me. I don’t know how long I sat there.

Chapter 14

The next day I wrote my father’s name on all of his clothes and then I packed the one suitcase that my father had brought from Florida until overflowing. I put the rest of his things into several garbage bags and drove to the nursing home.

In contrast to Mariner where my grandmother now lived, Garden Care and the area immediately surrounding it was anything but plush. Garden Care Center is located in Ft. Worth a few blocks behind the VA clinic. The area where the clinic and Garden Care are located could only be described as run down and impoverished. To get to the nursing home, you pass a number of run down and/or condemned buildings, boarded up long forgotten businesses, a few social services buildings, the drug and alcohol clinic, the AIDS clinic, and a halfway house, just to name a few.  The building itself wasn’t much to look at, just a nondescript square cinder block building painted white. Inside was not much better. Actually, Garden Care Center was everything about nursing homes that scared me as a child. Unlike Mariner, with its open airiness, bright colors and upscale decorations, Garden Care was sterile, bleak, and cold. As soon as I walked in the door, I was immediately hit by the nursing home smell, urine, feces, old people, and cleaning products.

As I walked down the dingy hallway, I looked in room after dreary room. Even the rooms where family members had tried to spruce up with decorations and home furnishings still seemed drab. I don’t know if I can do this again.

I tried to ignore my trepidation at being there and asked someone who appeared to work at the home the way to Hester’s office. I went inside and talked to Hester as I filled out the paperwork she gave me. As I filled out the papers, Hester told me that my father had done fine over night, had eaten well that morning and seemed in general good spirits. When I was done with the papers, I went to the car and brought all of my father’s things inside, into Hester’s office. At seeing all of the bags along with the suitcase, Hester told me that each room had a very small closet that each patient shared with another person. I told her that if there was anyone else in the nursing home that needed clothing, it would be fine to allow them to have what my father would not be able to use, all except his winter coat. Hester gave me the code to get into the locked ward and then left for an appointment.

I stood outside the ward doors watching my father walk back and forth through the unit for a long time. I wasn’t sure if I should go in. I had no idea how my father would react to seeing me. After watching my father disappear around a corner and not reemerge for quite some time, I finally mustered enough courage to enter the ward. I reached behind the vending machine and punched the code into the numeric box on the wall. I had to slide inside the door quickly to keep the little old woman who had been standing near the door from running out as I stepped inside. I moved in front of her quickly as she tried to head for the open door. We did a slight dance as she tried to get around me before the door shut.  I was able to stay between her and the door long enough for it to close and lock shut again. As soon as she got around me, she started pushing on the door yelling incoherently. Breathe Leslie, its okay, you can do this. But I don’t want to do this. Come on just go see your dad for a few minutes and it’ll all be over. Liar!

I headed down the hall arguing with myself. As I continued walking down the hall, a little old man came walking towards me and I froze. This man, who I would learn later was named John, looked just like the old preacher man from the Poltergeist movie. When he got to me he reached out his hand to touch my arm and I could see that several of his fingers were severed mid knuckle. Oh god, oh god, oh god! Breathe, Leslie he’s not REALLY the guy from Poltergeist! He’s not going to hurt you. Just smile!

I started to shake, like I had on my first visit to Mariner, as I stood there rooted to the spot. With great effort, I willed my feet to move and took a step to the side, hoping to disengage John’s hand from my arm. As I moved, John started to sing Amazing Grace at me. Oh god, oh god, oh god! He really IS the guy from Poltergeist! I’m going to die!

I seriously had a moment where I had to physically stop myself from sinking down on the floor and crying. As I contemplated doing just that, John stopped singing, patted my arm, said, “God bless you, and walked away. John turned out to be one of my favorite patients in the ward.

I continued my journey up the ward and finally stopped where the hallway broke off into an L shape. The nurse’s station was on one side of the corridor and a small gathering area with a couch and a bunch of chairs and an old television mounted on the wall on the other. My father was sitting in a chair, staring off into space. I sat down in an empty chair next to him and touched his arm.

“Hey, Dad,” I said terrified of what might come next.

“Oh there you are. Where’ve you been?” Huh!?!

“Um, I’ve been home. How are you?” I said taken aback.

“I’m good. I’ve been here with my lady friend.” He said motioning to an elderly black woman sitting in a chair on the other side of him. “How long you here for?” he finished smiling at me. Holy Almond Joy! This just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier. Now he’s fine and not mad at me at all. Not to mention the fact that he’s been here for less than a day and he already has a lady friend? My dad continued to talk to me congenially for about fifteen minutes. He then started asking me questions which led me to believe he thought that he was in Florida and I had come from somewhere else to visit him. Things like, “how long would I be in town,” and “where was I staying?” I didn’t know how to answer him. Some of the questions I just ignored. Others I tried to tell the truth about. When I told him that I was staying at my house “here” in Arlington his face and demeanor began to change. My father asked me a few more questions regarding my “trip” that I fielded the best that I could, until I could tell that he was becoming very agitated. I told him that I would talk to him later and left.  Oh shit. I hope I didn’t just cause a problem. His moods are like a pendulum. I just hope he swings back to the way he was when I first got here.

The next day, I had planned to go back to the nursing home sometime in the afternoon. Before I could go, I got a call from one of the nurses in the Alzheimer’s unit. She told me that my father had been very agitated since yesterday evening and had to be sedated. She then told me that that morning my father had barricaded himself in the dining room and wouldn’t allow anyone in. They had finally gotten in and sedated him again because of his aggressiveness; he was currently sleeping. I thanked the nurse for the call and hung up. Damn, my visit had caused a problem. I guess I shouldn’t go there anymore; at least not until this aggressive stage runs it’s course, if it ever does.

Since deciding that it was best not to go to the nursing home, I was forced to call to check on my father’s well being. Even without my visits, my father’s mood pendulum kept swinging. Some days when I called, I was told that my father was fine and calm. Other days when I called, he was out of control and had to be sedated. One particular occasion, about a week after my father went into the nursing home, I got a call from the duty nurse. My father had thrown a chair through a window AND taken one of the male orderlies to the ground in a scuffle. Oh geez! What’s next!?!? I feel bad for putting him in there, but better there than here. I don’t know what I would have done if he had done those things with me alone at the house, or worse yet, with the kids.

During this time, I was still taking classes. On the Thursday afternoon before spring break I got a call from one of the doctors at Mariner. He called to tell me that my grandmother had fallen and broken her hip. He said that she was in a lot of pain and that they needed to operate and needed my okay. I told him of course and asked him to call me as soon as he knew more. He said that he would and hung up. Later that evening, the doctor called me again. He informed me that when they had gone in to do the surgery on my grandmother’s hip they had discovered that she had Gangrene of the intestines. He said that they could not operate on the hip without first operating on the intestines and given my grandmother’s advanced age, she had just turned 90 several days before, the mastectomy she had received in December and the small heart attack she had had in January, he didn’t think that she would survive the surgery and would probably die on the operating table. He told me that if left alone, my grandmother was certain to die. He then gave me the option of having them risk surgery or leave things as they were and call in Hospice to make my grandmother as comfortable as possible in her final days. Without hesitation, I told them to call Hospice and I would be there the next day. The doctor said that he didn’t think my grandmother would make it through the evening. But I knew better. “Just send my grandmother back to the nursing home. She’s not going anywhere right away. Trust me.” We hung up and I called and made arrangements to get to Florida.

After making my calls and packing for the trip, I started making phone calls to family members to alert them to my grandmother’s condition. I left a message for Carla, called my cousin’s Robert and Francois and then called their mother, Frankie. I told Frankie all that the doctor had told me regarding my grandmother’s condition. Her response was to begin yelling at me. “How does someone get gangrene of the intestines?” She yelled at me.

“I’m not exactly sure. The doctor said it had something to do with the fall and blood flow being cut off.” I explained.

“You need to tell those doctors to operate! She’s my aunt you can’t just let them let her die like that! They know there’s something they can do.” She went on.

“The doctor said that he doesn’t think she’s strong enough to make it through this surgery at her age with all that’s happened to her lately. He said that more than likely she would die on the operating table. I’m going there tomorrow and I’m going to stay until she passes.”

“Those doctors are lying! They can just cut out that part of the intestines and she’ll be fine. You can’t just let them let her die! You need to make them do something!” She continued yelling at me. Okay, you were the person who yelled at me when I told them to do the mastectomy because you said that the doctors just wanted to cut her up because she was black!?!? NOW you’re telling me to tell them to operate; because she can live without an intestine but NOT without a breast!?!? What the hell kind of logic is that?

“Frankie look, I know she’s your aunt, but she’s 90 years old, she’s had a mastectomy, a heart attack and now a broken hip on top of everything else. The doctors say she is in a lot of pain…”

She cut me off, “SO WHAT IF SHE’S 90 YEARS OLD; YOU CAN’T JUST LET THEM KILL HER!”

Now it was my turn to get angry. “Look, I’ve been listening to you yell at me every time I make a decision. If you want the responsibility, I will sign over medical proxy to you and you can do whatever you want!” I yelled.

“No, no I don’t want to do that…” she stammered.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I offered to let you take control before and you said no, but you have no problem telling me what I’m doing wrong! I’ve only been calling and telling you what’s happening to be nice, but really I didn’t have to. She may be your aunt but she’s my grandmother. I’m doing the best that I can. I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before and didn’t really want to deal with this, but it seems no one else is willing to do it, so I’m making the best decisions I know how! I would rather have Mama Moore pass away being made as comfortable as possible back at the nursing home with me and others who know and care about her, than have her die with her belly cut open in a sterile hospital room! I’ll be at mom’s if you need me and I’ll call you as soon as I know something. I need to go.” I finished and hung up. How the hell did I end up with all of this!?!? I’m supposed to be the screw up baby of the family that can’t do anything! And right now I wish I really was.

Friday afternoon I was back in Florida. I went straight to the nursing home. My grandmother had been moved back to her room. She looked to be resting comfortably connected to an IV drip. As I sat at the side of her bed talking quietly to her, one of the Hospice nurses came in. She told me that my grandmother was on a morphine drip to ease the pain and that it was only a matter of time. She then gave me some papers to fill out. She and I began talking and she told me how sweet my grandmother was and expressed her condolences. She then questioned why no one had come to visit my grandmother. I hate having to explain this. I gave her an abbreviated version of my grandmother’s pre-Alzheimer’s personality. Thankfully she just nodded and said that she understood and then told me that I was a good person for being there with my grandmother in the end. I don’t feel like a good person. I don’t even want to be here. If someone else would have done this, I wouldn’t be. I hope I’m doing the right thing. I know Mama Moore and I did not get along, didn’t even like each other, but I would never want her or anyone else to suffer. This isn’t about hate or anger; this is about compassion for a human being. That is the right thing to do, right? I thanked her and she left. I sat with my grandmother for over an hour and said all of what I was thinking. I had no idea if she could hear me, but I felt like I needed to say it.

After leaving the nursing home, I went to my mother’s house. James was there but my mother was still at work. James and I visited for a bit and then I started making phone calls to try and arrange for my grandmother’s funeral. I called the funeral home to talk to Mr. Gaines, but he was out. I ended up talking to the same rude woman who I’d spoken to before. I left a message, but I had my doubts on whether or not it was actually written down. I then called the cemetery to see what I could do with what was left that was paid on the burial plot. The person I needed to speak to wasn’t in, so I left another message. I then called the consignment store that I had asked to sell my grandmother’s things. I hadn’t heard from Sean, the owner’s son since just after he went to the house to pick up the furnishings to sell. The last time I spoke to him, he said that he was going to be taking the organ and a few other things to auction and that he would call me back. Since then I had left several messages, but gotten no return call. This phone call was no different. Sean was not in, so I left a message. I also called Ralph Flowers and left him a message regarding my grandmother’s health and asked what, if anything, did I need to do about her dealings with the investment group.

Once that was done, there was nothing else for me to do at the moment, so I pulled out my psychology book and began to study. I had a test the week after spring break and I had been struggling with some of the memorization in the course and had only been able to pull a C+ so far in the class.

While I was studying, my mother came home. The first thing she did when she saw me was comment on how skinny I was and asked if I was sick. I know a lot of people have to deal with the, “Don’t you eat right? You’re skin and bones.” comments from their mother, and I am no different. My mother usually thinks I’m too skinny and need to eat, but this time she was actually correct. The six months of living in a time bomb with my father had taken its toll on me physically. Besides the lack of sleep, I had also lost almost 30 lbs in the first two months of him being there. I’m 5’6” and was now close to, if not under100 lbs. Even I thought I was too skinny. I’m not exactly sure why I lost the weight, because I did eat everyday. As a matter of fact, I probably ate more when my father was living with us because I usually ate lunch when I made it for him, which is not something I usually did. I lost so much weight that Mike noticed and said something one day as I was getting dressed because I had lost my ass. My whole life, I had been blessed with a bubble butt. Not huge, but it was a definitely bubble. Now, nothing, it was gone; like I had been robbed. Even at my skinniest as a kid, I had always had an ass. I didn’t even know that it was possible for me to lose it. So, I now swam in my smallest clothing. I assured my mother that I was indeed eating and left it at that.

After my mother got settled in and changed, she told me everything that she had done on her end. She had called one of her friends in town, Hassie, who was a long time Ft. Pierce resident and knew my grandmother and many of her friends and associates. I use the term “friends” loosely because to date, none of these “friends” had bothered to make the twenty minute drive from Ft. Pierce to Port St. Lucie to visit her. We may not have gotten along, but that is something that bothers me to this day. She put out the word to Hassie that my grandmother’s death was eminent and informed her of my grandmother’s lack of finances and asked her to make calls to those in the community that she knew. While my mother and I were talking, the phone rang. My mother answered the phone and after speaking a few minutes she handed it to me telling me that it was my grandmother’s old neighbor Jessie Gibson.

I’ve known Ms. Gibson probably my whole life. When I was little, she lived in the house directly across from my grandmother’s house on Ave M in Ft. Pierce. She had a daughter Felicia who was about the same age as me, who I would play with when I would come to visit. Ms. Gibson was always polite to me, but I got the feeling she didn’t really like me. Maybe that was just my kid vibe, I’m not sure, but she always seemed to be very tightly wound or restrained to me. I picked up the phone and said “hello.” Ms. Gibson told me that she had heard about my grandmother and expressed her condolences. She then told me that she had spoken to several of my grandmother’s friends and sorority sisters about the financial dilemma and that they would be taking up a collection to help pay for my grandmother’s funeral. She said that she would have people contact me at my mother’s house whenever they had gotten the donations together. I thanked her for her help and told her I would call her with any developments on my grandmother and hung up. That was very nice of her. Maybe this won’t be as hard as I thought it was going to be.

I spent the rest of the evening watching TV with James and my mother visiting and fielding phone calls from relatives, before going to bed early.

I woke up the next day around 9:30. I got up, took a shower, got dressed and wandered into the kitchen intent on trying to find some coffee. My plans for the day were to visit my grandmother for awhile and then go to the funeral home and the cemetery and see what I could get done in person since I hadn’t been having much luck over the phone. I could tell by the silence in the house that no one was home. When I got into the kitchen, I saw a note on the counter; it was to me from my mother and read something like this:

Morning Darling,

There is coffee in the cabinet above the coffee maker. Make yourself whatever you want to eat. Make sure that you wash all the dishes after you eat.

I need for you to dust, vacuum the carpets and sweep and mop all the floors. The vacuum is in the laundry room and there is a broom and mop and bucket in the garage.

Make sure to clean up the bathroom after yourself.

Love you.

D

You’ve got to be kidding me!?!? Clean up after yourself…What am I twelve? You forgot to tell me to wipe my ass and put on clean underwear! My God, I came here to handle the death of my grandmother, not to be the freakin’ maid! I crumpled up the note, made myself some coffee, had my morning cigarette and then went in search of the vacuum. While I was vacuuming the living room, James came home and asked me what I was doing. I went and got the note and handed it to him. James read the note to himself. When he finished, he put it down and told me not to worry about it and that he would take care of it. I thanked him, put the vacuum away and left for the nursing home. I love James! He rocks! Okay, maybe I am twelve.

I visited with my grandmother for about an hour and a half; talking and singing quietly to her. A nurse came in at some point. She told me that there had been no change in my grandmother’s condition. Once I left the nursing home, I went to Stone Brother’s Funeral Home in Ft. Pierce to see if I could make arrangements. When I went in, I was immediately greeted by a stern looking older black woman who introduced herself as Liz. I identified myself as Wilester Caynon’s granddaughter. Liz immediately got a huge grin on her face and shook my hand firmly and directed me into the main office. Once inside the office she chuckled heartily saying, “So, you’re the one I’ve been talkin’ to on the phone. I thought you were some uppity white woman.” Huh!?!?! I said I was Wilester’s granddaughter over the phone. And if you knew my grandmother, then you knew I wasn’t white, regardless of how I sound. I thought about saying all of this, but decided to keep my mouth shut and just smiled. From that moment on, Liz was nothing but helpful and nice. She told me that Mr. Gaines was not in, but he was already in the process of making the arrangements for my grandmother’s funeral, having heard of my grandmother’s current condition. She said that she would have him call me as soon as he came back into the office. I thanked her, gave her my cell phone number and left. I then headed to the cemetery to find out what I could do about the burial plot.

The cemetery is located on the outskirts of Ft. Pierce, about fifteen minutes north of town. When I got there, I was greeted by a pleasant woman who, after listening to my brief explanation, went and got one of the owners for me to speak to. When the gentleman got there, I gave him a Reader’s Digest version of events. The man told me that he remembered the case; he had actually been the person I had spoken to over the phone. He brought me into an office. Once inside, he again explained that since my father had stopped payment, the only thing that my grandmother now owned was the hole in the ground. I explained my grandmother’s financial situation and then asked what it would cost to actually bury my grandmother. He told me that it would depend on the headstone, but said that he could do a basic burial for about $5000, or if I planned to cremate her, he could probably do it for around half that. Wow, that’s still a lot for a hole in the ground, especially, if she’s cremated. I mean how much room can a cremated body take up? It’s like the size of a coffee can. I then asked what would happen to the plot if I didn’t use it. He said nothing. Since the spot had been paid for, there was nothing he could do with it. He then said that people often sell off burial plots. So I asked how to go about doing that and how much to charge. He told me that he couldn’t tell me how much to charge, that was all up to the individual, but I could check the newspaper and see other people’s ads. I thanked him and told him I would call him when I knew exactly what I was going to do and then left.

I drove back to my mother’s house. James was home when I got there so we talked a little bit about the things I had done that day. At some point, James fell asleep in the recliner in the living room. I took the time and made phone calls to relatives to update them on my grandmother’s condition. The last call I made was to Frankie. I told her that they had moved my grandmother back to the nursing home. That they had put her on a morphine drip to ease her pain and that I had gone and sat with her each day. She began yelling at me about letting the doctors starve her to death. I tried to reason with her, but eventually just let her go off without response until she stopped on her own. When Frankie finished yelling, I explained the financial and burial issues that I was dealing with. When I told her that more than likely I was going to have to have my grandmother cremated, Frankie went off on a fresh tirade… “Cremation is not acceptable…How could I do that to her aunt…” I even think blaspheme was mentioned. I’m not sure, I finally tuned out. Frankie finally finished her current rant. I then told her that I would let her know if there were any changes, said goodbye and hung up.

After I hung up, I grabbed my books and went to the family room to study. My mother came home a few hours later. When she came in, she asked me if I had done everything she had asked me to do on her list. She said she wanted the house to look nice when people came over for my grandmother’s funeral. I told her no I had only vacuumed the living room and James had told me that he would do the rest. She looked annoyed and walked into the bedroom grumbling something. I don’t know what she said; I ignored her like only a child can a parent or vise versa. She didn’t bring it up again. We spent the rest of the evening in relative silence. My mother watching her shows, James dozing on and off before he went to work and me studying and fielding phone calls from Mike and some friends.

Saturday morning, after I got up and dressed, I got a call from Mr. Gaines at the funeral home. I made an appointment to go in to speak to him to make the funeral arrangements. My mother said that she would come with me to help with the preparations. When we got to the funeral home you would have thought I wasn’t there. My mother took over asking questions, making arrangements for the obituary, and finally setting an appointment to have Mr. Gaines and the preacher from my grandmother’s church to come to her house later that week to finalize everything. I don’t think I said more than two words the entire time I was there. Um hello!?! YooHoo, remember me, the granddaughter who’d been handling everything who is actually related to this woman!?!? Part of me was grateful for the break from it all. But there was another part of me that was irritated and resentful for being treated like an insignificant child. But I smiled and kept my mouth shut. When we were finished, I dropped my mother off at her house and went to the nursing home.

On my way to the nursing home, I made another call to the consignment shop. Again I was told that Sean was out, so I left another message. I spent about two hours sitting with my grandmother and then left. On my way back to my mother’s I called my old friend, in Florida, Kathleen. Surprisingly, she was home, so I swung by her house for a visit. I had lived with Kathleen, her mom (Ma) and then boyfriend, now husband, Bobby just after high school. Her house was always like a second home to me. It was nice, in the midst of all that I had been dealing with, to just hang out with friends, have dinner, light-hearted conversation and be normal again. I really needed it.

I got in that night just after 7 p.m. Frankie called, but when my mother said who’s number was on the caller ID I waved her off. I just wasn’t in the mood for another yelling session. I called home and said goodnight to the kids and talked to Mike for awhile. Later I called Sara and talked for a few hours then spent the rest of the evening on the comedy news group catching up. It was down time I thoroughly needed.

Sunday, was relatively uneventful. I went to church with my mother and James, then went with them and had Chinese food for lunch. After lunch I went to the nursing home for a couple of hours, then came back and spent the rest of the day studying at my mother’s. Frankie called again that evening, but I waved off the phone call. The only thing of any significance, that happened, happened that night.

James went to work and my mother actually asked if there was anything on TV that “I” wanted to watch. I said actually, because my mother and I both happen to have a mutant male remote control gene, which requires that we not only hold the remote and control what is watched on whatever television is in our vicinity, but we must channel surf during all commercials. This was during the time when HBO ruled Sunday nights. The current Sunday night show of choice for Mike and I was “Six Feet Under”. I had been afraid that I would miss that week’s episode, so I jumped at the chance to watch it. There was a little more than a half an hour before the show started and I used the time to talk the show up to my mother. By the time it started, my mother was actually excited to see it. If you’ve never seen the show, the short version is, it is a dramady about a family who runs a funeral parlor. Each episode starts with a death, which facilitates a lot, if not most of that episodes’ storyline. So, the show starts with a guy walking into the home gym in his upscale apartment. The guy turns on a television which is playing hard core porn. Oh god NO! The guy then proceeds to hook a belt to the top of his weight bench and his neck at the other end and then begins to masturbate while hanging. Somehow, he slips and ends up hanging himself and dying in the act.

I couldn’t even look at my mother. “I” wanted to die. At the end of the scene, I got up and said, “I’ll watch the rerun at midnight,” as I headed for the guest room.

She said, “Yes, I think that would be best,” as she changed the channel.

On Monday, while I was at the nursing home sitting with my grandmother, one of the nurses came in and said that the business administrator needed to speak to me before I left. I went to the business office and met with the administrator. When I went in, she expressed her condolences. She again expressed her shock at the fact that the nice little old woman that she knew had been so unpleasant that she had only had two visitors, (me and my cousin Robert) the entire time she had been there. She asked how my father was doing. I gave her a quick run down of the last six months. When I finished, she shook her head and said, “No wonder you’ve lost so much weight. I don’t know how you’ve had time to eat.”

“Yeah, I’ve found the key to weight loss…stress!  I’m writing a book, I’m gonna call it, “Lose Your Mind Lose Your Ass, A Care Givers Guide to Weight Loss!” We both laughed. Then I told her about my father having a “lady friend” already, just like my grandmother had her little boyfriend.

She laughed and said, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but we used to lose your grandmother all the time. She never got out of the building, but we would go to find her, mainly in the evenings and would have to search all over the place. We always used to find her in one of the male resident’s beds. This one time, when she went missing, we found her as we went to put one of the gentleman down to bed. We tried to get her out of the bed, but she wouldn’t move. Finally the gentleman got fed up and got in the bed on the other side and told her “Fine, if you’re gonna stay you need to take off your clothes.” Ms. Caynon jumped out of bed and ran out of the room.”  Oh lord. Well at least my grandmother’s not a hooch , she’s just a tease. We laughed for a long time. Finally, we got down to why she had wanted to see me. First of all, she gave me paperwork to fill out to allow the nursing home to call in the coroner. While I filled out the paperwork, she asked me for the information on the funeral home that I would be using. I gave her the name and number to contact them to make arrangements for transportation. While I continued filling out the papers, she called Stone Brother’s to make contact beforehand.

From the moment she said hello, I could hear her struggling. She tried explaining who she was and why she was calling but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Whoever she was talking to, seemed to be stone-walling her. I motioned for her to give me the phone. She told the person on the phone that she had Wilester’s granddaughter who wanted to talk to her. I took the phone and said “hello” and Liz’s voice came back saying hello to me. I explained why the woman was calling and asked what needed to be done. Liz made a comment regarding the “white woman” who she had just been talking to and then told me to just have the nursing home people call whenever my grandmother passed and it would all be taken care of. I thanked her and hung up. Oh my gosh, that was so embarrassing! What is wrong with this woman? How do people function in the modern world with that kind of attitude? I apologized for Liz, exchanged a bit more small talk and then left.

Later that night, back at my mother’s, Frankie called again. I figured I couldn’t keep avoiding her so I took the call. I told her that there had been no real change in my grandmother’s condition. Frankie took this as a sign that if she had gotten the surgery, she would have been fine and started yelling as much at me. I sat listening to her yell at me for quite sometime. Finally, my mother, who was sitting across the room from me and could hear Frankie’s yelling, said, “Give me the phone.” I cut Frankie off and told her that my mother wanted to talk to her. I got up and handed my mother the phone. My mother took the phone and walked out of the family room and into her bedroom. After about ten minutes, my mother came back into the family room and hung the phone up. She told me that Frankie would not be calling anymore. That she had told her that I would call her when there were any developments and that she needed to back off. Yeah Mom! Thank you for having my back! I didn’t care if it made me seem like a 10 year old sicking their mommy on a bully. All I knew was that I was glad she had done it. It was a bit of a bonding moment between my mom and me. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV, drinking wine and chatting pleasantly.

Tuesday was more of the same. I got up and dressed and went to the nursing home. There was a small change in my grandmother’s condition. She was beginning to deteriorate physically, ever so slightly. I sat with my grandmother for a few hours and then went back to my mom’s to study.

While I was studying, Jessie Gibson called. She said that my grandmother’s friends and sorority sisters had raised some money for the burial. I told her thank you and asked her how she wanted to handle getting it to me. She then informed me that the people who had donated the money did not trust me to have the money and had given it to her. Oh, that’s nice. What the hell do they think I’m going to do with it, run off and NOT bury my grandmother!?!? I told her that it was fine; she could give the money directly to Mr. Gaines at the funeral home. She apologized several times. I told her not to worry about it. I guess I couldn’t blame them, after what my father had done with my grandmother’s money and the fact that most of them probably did not know me, or only knew of me from the stories my grandmother had told them over the years.

When my mom got home later that evening, as she came into the room, I was telling James what Mrs. Gibson had told me earlier. My mom asked me what was going on. I recounted what had happened. She immediately became incensed. She started talking about how rude the people were and wanting to call them to confront them about it. I tried to calm her down. I told her that I understood, at least a little bit, why the people were acting the way they were acting. I tried to explain to her that yes I agreed with her that the people were being somewhat rude, but at the same time, with all that had gone on, I could see how they would be a bit gun shy about me. As I was saying all of this, my mom cut me off with, “Oh, so you understand why these people are being like this do you? Well, who’s the one getting a C in Psychology!?!” What the fuck!?!? Where the hell did that come from? I went rigid. I don’t think I could have been more shocked if my mother had slapped me across the face. My mother began speaking again, telling me why she thought these people needed to be called, when I cut her off.

“You know what, Mother, that was totally uncalled for.”

“I was just trying to get you to understand…” my mother began, sounding offended.

“I know exactly what you were trying to do.” I said curtly, cutting her off again. “You were trying to make me listen to you. To make me agree with you and you felt the need to try and belittle me to do it. You’ve done it all my life.” I continued with restraint.

“I did no such thing. I…” she began again. This time I cut her off with an index finger in the air.

“You know what, I’m a 34 year old woman and I will not be spoken to like that anymore by you or anyone else. If you weren’t my mother I wouldn’t even still be sitting here after a comment like that.” I sat there fuming, glaring at my mother; every childhood issue between us bubbling just below the surface.

My mother opened her mouth to say something else in her defense, when James, who had been sitting quietly watching this exchange chimed in. “Delores, enough.” He said calmly. My mother looked at him as if she were going to say something then decided against it. She lit a cigarette and grabbed the book she had been reading during the week from the arm of her chair and began to read. I gave James a “Thank you” look, got up and went into the guest room. She did it again. Just when I thought she had my back with Frankie, she pulls the rug out from under me. I mean, there was no other reason to say something like that, except to try and mentally muscle me. I can’t wait until all of this is over. I am so done with all of these people in my family. I’m done. When my grandmother dies, I will never come back to this state ever again. There is nothing here for me. I hate this place. I am so done. I spent the rest of the evening chatting online with friends.

Whether my perception of what happened was correct or not, I still don’t know. I do know that from that moment on, an emotional door closed inside my head.

Wednesday’s routine remained basically the same with a couple variations. I got up and went to the nursing home. I spent time talking to the Hospice nurse. My grandmother was still slowly deteriorating; her kidneys were beginning to shut down. When I left the nursing home, I went to visit my friend Heather’s mom, Sue, and her new husband. I stayed and visited for about an hour, then went back to my mother’s and studied.

That evening, Mr. Gaines and the preacher from my grandmother’s church came to the house to finalize the funeral arrangements. I was struck instantly by the preacher’s appearance. He was a relatively tall black man of around 6’2”. I couldn’t tell exactly how old he was. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his late forties, early fifties; the Gerry Curl made his age deceiving. Who still wears a Gerry Curl? He was dressed in a bright green pin-striped zootsuit, topped off with multi-colored, wing tipped, patten leather shoes and gold rimmed glasses. I think he may have even had gold teeth, but I can’t be sure. My mother ushered the two men into the living room and immediately took over. I tried several times to enter the conversation, but both the preacher and my mother acted as if I wasn’t in the room. Finally I just sat back and listened. It wouldn’t have been an issue, if the funeral arrangements had been the main focus of the discussion. Instead, my mother spent most of the time talking about how my father had financially done her wrong during their marriage and comparing it to what he had done to himself and my grandmother. Yes, everything she said may have all been true. I just didn’t feel that during an appointment for funeral arrangements was the time or place for it. But I kept my mouth shut. As the meeting seemed to wind to an end and both men got up to leave, the preacher stopped on his way out the door. He turned to James, my mother and me and said, “Ya’ll need to come out a check out my pimp wagon.”

O…K…

We followed the two men out and he did indeed have a pimp wagon. In the driveway was an old Cadillac that could have been the toast of MTV’s “Pimp My Ride.” The Cadi was a metallic gold color, and lowered with gold rims and white wall tires. While we stood there “admiring” his ride, he opened the doors to show the interior. I didn’t see inside though, I had positioned myself behind James to try and keep everyone from seeing me laughing. We stood outside while the preacher sang the praises of his ride for about ten minutes, then he and Mr. Gaines left. Once back in the house, my mother went into her bedroom for something while James and I went into the family room. As we both sat down, I turned to James and asked, “Is a preacher supposed to have a Pimp Wagon?” We laughed for a long time about that.

Years later, I swear I saw this same man in the documentary, “Pimps Up Ho’s Down.” He was wearing a lime green suit and the same glasses, standing in front of his “pimp wagon.”

I called Mr. Gaines the next day to apologize for the bashing that was going on during the previous day’s meeting. Mr. Gaines just laughed and said, “I know your mother.” And we left it at that.

The week continued to drag on. On Thursday, I did finally get a call from Ralph Flowers, the lawyer for the Investment Corporation. He told me that since I did not have the deed to my grandmother’s shares, the best he would be able to do would be to send a donation toward her funeral. I thanked him for his help and hung up.

Friday and Saturday were more of the same. Up, visit my grandmother, back to my mother’s to study. This is the woman who wasn’t going to last through the night TWO weeks ago. I told the doctors she wasn’t going anywhere fast.

Sunday, I had planned to do my normal routine, up, nursing home, study, but my mother insisted I go to church with her and James. So, of course, I passive-aggressively over slept. I woke up to two things happening simultaneously; my mother knocking on my door asking if I was getting up for church and my cell phone ringing. I yelled, “Hang on,” to my mother as I rolled over and answered my phone. It was the Hospice nurse on my cell phone telling me that my grandmother had just passed away. Apparently, one of the nursing home nurses went in to check on her and noticed her breathing had gotten very shallow. The nurse had called in one of the Hospice nurses and while they checked on her vitals, she just stopped breathing. The nurse talked about how sweet my grandmother had been and how much they had all enjoyed caring for her. I zoned out. Wow, it’s over, just like that.

I told the nurse that I would come up to the nursing home as soon as I got dressed to fill out the final paperwork and handle anything else that needed to be done. I then got up and told my mother that my grandmother had died and that I was going to head up to the nursing home. My mother still insisted that I go to church since, “She’s passed away. There’s nothing you can do for her now. The paperwork can wait.” Wow! That’s where I get that from. I thought about arguing the point, especially since I didn’t want to go to church in the first place, but decided to keep my mouth shut and just go.

While I was getting ready for church, I called Mr. Gaines and left him a message to get the funeral process rolling and that I would call him after the service. I then called Mike to tell him that my grandmother had finally passed away and happy birthday. How weird is this… Happy Birthday, my grandma’s dead.

After church, I went to the nursing home and filled out paperwork for the coroner to do an autopsy. I didn’t get to see my grandmother; she had already been picked up. So I went back to my mother’s. At my mother’s, I made phone calls to Mrs. Gibson, Ralph, Carla and numerous other relatives and lastly, Frankie.

When Frankie answered the phone I told her everything that the Hospice nurse had told me about my grandmother’s death. Surprisingly, she didn’t really say much. I then told her that I was thinking about having the funeral on Wednesday to make sure that she and other family members out of state could get there. I asked her what day would she and her boys, Robert and Francois would be able to fly in. She told me that she wasn’t coming. What do you mean you’re not coming? After all of the grief you’ve been giving me about Mama Moore being YOUR aunt and now you’re not coming to her funeral!?!?

She said that she had fallen and pulled something in her shoulder. She said that she couldn’t get herself to the airport. I told her that I would figure out a way to get her to the airport, send a car for her, whatever it took and make sure that there was help for her at the airport and on the plane. She then said that she couldn’t dress herself for the funeral. I told her that my mother and I would make sure she got dressed and not to worry about it. Frankie began getting heated with her reasoning for not coming. Try as I might to reassure her that she would be taken care of during the trip and for the funeral, she just wasn’t having it.

I tried one final time to persuade her until she cut me off screaming, “Didn’t you hear me? I’m hurt! No one seems to care about me. No one seems to care that I’m in pain! I will not come out there when I can’t even put on a brassiere!”

Wow, hello Sybil! I stopped trying. Instead, I asked her if she would like my grandmother’s ashes. BIG MISTAKE!

Frankie started yelling that it was disrespectful to have her aunt cremated. She said the family should be able to come up with enough to bury her properly. She then said that between her, Robert and Francois that they could come up with at least five hundred dollars. I tried to explain to her the prices I had been given for all of the burial expenses and that even with five hundred dollars; I didn’t think that we would be close. She would not be deterred. We went back and forth for about twenty minutes until finally she hung up on me. I can’t wait until this is all over. I am so through with this whole family. They’re all freaking nuts.

Later that day, Francois called. I could tell from the very beginning of the call that Frankie had either put him up to it or he was at least calling to plead her case about the burial. I told him that financially, it was just not feasible to have a full burial. I then asked if he and his wife would be coming to the funeral. He said that they both were very busy with work and school and would not be able to attend. Figures. I finished by telling him that I appreciated the call, but I was doing all that could with the resources at hand. And then told him that no offense to him, but I would rather not have to deal with his mother anymore. We exchanged a strained good-bye and hung up. I had an instant message conversation with his brother, Robert, online later that evening where I was a bit more blunt. Robert and I have always been closer and for that reason seem to be able to say exactly what’s on our minds without any fall out.

The next day Carla called to tell me that she had gotten my message. She said that she didn’t think that she would be able to get back to the states for the funeral. Oh no, I am not going through this whole thing alone. She’s your grandmother too. You need to be there! I told her that so far none of our other relatives would be able to come, mostly for medical reasons and I would really appreciate it if she would be there with me. I really didn’t want to be the only family member at the funeral. I’m not sure why, I just knew I wanted someone else from our crazy family there with me to deal with the Ft. Pierce folk. Carla finally agreed that she would come. She said she would call me later with her flight info. I told her that I would come pick her up at the airport and she could have the guest room at my mother’s and I would sleep on the couch in the family room. She told me not to worry about it. She said she would rent a car and book a hotel room for herself. Thank you, thank you, thank you. SIGH. Okay, Les, it’s almost over.

The rest of the week was pretty boring. I spent most of it studying at my mother’s and fielding phone calls. Ralph Flowers called to say that he would be donating one-hundred dollars from the investment group towards the funeral and would bring it to Mr. Gaines. A few distant relatives called to say that they couldn’t come, most were elderly and had medical issues of their own. A few said that they would be sending me money to help with the expenses that I had incurred. Thank you, we could really use it. I didn’t expect to be here for two weeks.  Mike hasn’t been able to work since I got here. This is going to kill us financially. Carla called to say that she would be in Friday afternoon in time to make the viewing at 6 p.m. The coroner called to say that they had finished the autopsy. My grandmother did indeed have true Alzheimer’s. She had died of liver and kidney failure as a result of the gangrene of the intestines. Mr. Gaines called to say that he had received the donations from the people in town and that it was not enough to cover a true burial, but he would cut his fees enough so that I could have a proper funeral and then cremate her. He then asked me what outfit I would be putting my grandmother in for viewing. Crap, I hadn’t thought about that? She doesn’t have any nice clothes anymore. I’ll have to go buy her something.

I told him that I wasn’t sure and that I would call him back on Tuesday to let him know.

When my mother got home, I told her that I would need to go and buy my grandmother an outfit for the viewing. She questioned why this would be needed since I planned to cremate my grandmother. I told her that I didn’t know. My mother got on the phone and called Stone Brother’s and asked Mr. Gaines if they had any kinds of gowns or robes at the funeral home that they could put on my grandmother for the viewing and then take off afterwards for the cremation. Mother, OH MY GOD YOU DID NOT JUST ASK THAT! Apparently Mr. Gaines said no. My mother hung up, irritated. I told her that I could go shopping the next day for a dress, but my mother told me not to spend my money. She said that she would find something in her closet that she didn’t wear anymore that they could use. And that’s what we did. My mother found a black and gold outfit that no longer fit, that I do think my grandmother would have liked. It was a nice gesture, as strangely motivated as it was.

Friday finally arrived and there was an electric buzz about the day. I have never understood why that happens before a funeral. I get why there is an energy that surrounds other occasions like weddings or births. But the day of a funeral is leading up to something somber that no one looks forward to. Whatever the reason, I could feel the charge in the air as I made and took phone calls about the funeral. I started to get very nervous at 3:30. I still hadn’t heard from Carla. I knew that she was flying into Orlando, which is why I started to panic. Orlando being a two hour drive, on a good day, meant that if she didn’t land in the next half an hour, I would be going to the viewing of my grandmother alone. Please get here in time. Do not make me have to sit in a room with all of the Ft. Pierce people all by myself!

I called Mr. Gaines to let him know that I still had not heard from Carla and that I really didn’t want to start the funeral without her. He told me not to worry. He said that I could go to the viewing if I wanted to, but it was not required and was not formal. He said that since the funeral was at my grandmother’s church, it would not be a problem to push things back a bit.

Finally, a little after 4 p.m., Carla called to say that she was on the ground in Orlando and in a rental car headed to my mother’s. I told her that I would go to the viewing with my mother and James and would meet her back at my mother’s so that she could get ready for the actual funeral.

After I hung up with Carla, I got ready, and then my mother, James and I drove to the funeral home to view my grandmother. The dress my mother had given her looked nice. As I stood at the side of the casket looking down at my grandmother, I felt… nothing. Huh, I know I should feel SOMETHING, but I don’t feel a thing. No sadness, no closure, nothing. We stayed for about half an hour. In that time, a few of my grandmother’s friends came in and gave their condolences. My mother did most of the talking, while I hung back with James being quiet.

Back at my mother’s, we waited for Carla. She came in like a whirlwind, talking about what she had been doing since we had last seen each other, while getting dressed. Once she was ready, we prepared to head out to the church. As we were heading for the door, my mother said that she would ride with us. I went sort of ridged. I know it was stupid, but I just wanted to hang out with my cousin for the short car ride to the church. I must have made a face, because before I could protest, James piped in and said that since Carla and I were family, they should let us go alone. Thank you James! You so rock.

Carla and I got into her rental car and then drove to the church. Most of what we did was small talk, but I felt a small sense of relief. I was with the one other person in town who understood what being the granddaughter of Wilester Caynon was all about.

When Carla and I arrived at the church, I had a flood of memories hit me all at once. It had been years since I had set foot inside my grandmother’s church as a child. Some of the memories were good; winning the memorization of the names from the books of the bible, dressing up for service, and some of the people I had met there over the years. While others were not so good; my grandmother telling me she “Didn’t know that I could do anything” after winning the bible books challenge, being awakened for church by my grandmother hitting me with a belt, being called an “Oreo” by some of the kids because they said I “spoke white”, just to name a few. The benign feelings I had in the funeral home were quickly being replaced by old angers.

We went inside and were asked by one of the church members to hang back inside the chapel. My grandmother’s sorority sisters were holding some secret ceremony at the front of the chapel, that I guess we weren’t supposed to be a part of. When they finished, Carla and I made our way to the front pew that was reserved for family. A few of the sorority sisters came over and expressed their condolences to Carla, making mention of the fact that she looked just like her mother Beverly, while completely ignoring me. I assume that the women remembered Carla from her years living with my grandmother. She hugged several of the women as they came around. Now I know that these women know that I have been the one handling everything since my father got sick, but whatever. While this went on, I made eye contact with the only woman in the group that I knew, Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson was the mother of Cassandra, one of the children that I usually played with whenever I came to town to visit. I remember always thinking how nice and pretty she was. She had always been very nice to me. I liked visiting her home to play with Cassandra and later playing with her baby daughter Christelsi. (I have no idea how to spell that name.) I could hardly pronounce it as a kid. Everyone ended up calling her Chrissy, as I remember. I said hello and asked how Cassandra and Chrissy were doing. As she told me, I got the distinct vibe that she did not want to be standing there talking to me. She seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Wow, even Ms. Johnson? I guess it doesn’t matter. I will never see any of these people ever again after tonight. I stood there smiling as she gave me the brief run down of her daughters. Cassandra was not in town, but Chrissy was and would be at the church later for the funeral. When Ms. Johnson finished talking to me, Carla turned to us. Seeing who I was speaking to, she shouted excitedly, “Ms. Johnson! Oh my gosh!” and they began an animated conversation. I went and sat down on the pew, alone.

The sorority sisters eventually all filed out of the chapel and left Carla and I sitting silently alone in the chapel. After a time, I don’t know how long, people started filing into the chapel. People would come down the aisle to view my grandmother’s body and then turn to Carla and me sitting on the front pew as the only family members.

Time after time, the people would come over and go directly to Carla to give their condolences and engage in some small talk and then walk away. I did get a few head nods in my direction, but not one person spoke to me. Carla finally noticed and asked me what was going on. All I could say was, “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because of what Dad did and they’re mad at me for it. I don’t know. Either that, or they all hate me just like Grandma did?” She hugged my shoulder and we waited for the service to start.

The choir filed in and the music started, then the pimp preacher took the pulpit. The preacher gave a halleluiah service straight out of the movies. He started slow and built to a fevered pitch. He praised the virtues of my grandmother. He preached how her greatness and goodness was echoed by her friends, family, and the community, complete with an AMEN section provided by the choir. I have never been so angry in my life.

The more the preacher spoke, the angrier I got. It was as if with every good thing he said about my grandmother, a hundred awful things she had done over the years bubbled up to the surface. I tried hard to control the rage, but the harder I fought to keep it down the more it pushed upward. I began to shake uncontrollably with the effort. Finally, I broke down in hysterical angry tears. It was an ugly cry like nothing I have ever experienced before or since. While this was happening, I glanced over at Carla and she was doing the exact same thing. I knew her tears, like mine, had nothing to do with being sad about our grandmother’s passing. It was more to do with the fact that all of this admiration was a complete and utter sham. Carla and I spoke about it later on the car ride home. We both knew that every person in that chapel had, at some point, come to a point of refusing to deal with my grandmother and her abusive, abrasive, non-compromising ways. If these few people who had decided to make an appearance at my grandmother’s funeral had really cared about her and admired her like they were saying, then at least ONE of them would have come to the house to visit her when she became ill, or at least gone to visit her at the nursing home in the ten months that she was there. But they hadn’t and we both knew it.

When the service was over, we were all directed to another room of the church for the traditional funeral dinner provided by the church. At the dinner, my mother and James stood and talked to some of the people that they knew in town. Carla hardly made it into the room before being swept up in hugs and greetings from townspeople she had known her from her days in Ft. Pierce. I waded through the people, got myself a plate and sat down at a table by myself to eat. While I was eating, Carla brought Mrs. Johnson and Chrissy over to where I was sitting. Chrissy, who had been maybe about five the last time that I saw her, said hello politely and then stood there as I told a few stories from her childhood. The three of them were whisked away by someone after a few minutes and I sat back down to eat. Several minutes later, I heard my name being called. I looked up and saw another woman that I had known and really liked from childhood. I couldn’t remember her name, but that didn’t matter. I stood up and gave her a big hug and asked how she had been doing. She said fine and told me how sorry she was for everything that she had heard had been going on. I thanked her and we began to chat about things that had happened to people in town over the years. After the town gossip, she asked me if I was married or if I had any children. I told her yes. I grabbed my purse from the table and pulled out my wallet and flipped to the family photos that I carried. She looked at the picture and her demeanor totally changed. Her smile turned to a scowl, she looked up at me and said, “Hhm, so your husband’s white.” Before I could answer she turned and walked away.  Oh my god, get me the hell out of this backwards ass town! I don’t want to be here anymore!

While I still stood there, stunned, looking at the back of this woman’s head, Mrs. Gibson came over and hugged me. We spoke for awhile about my grandmother, Felicia, and my family, until Carla came over. Carla whispered in my ear that she wanted to go get something to eat because the food at the church was way too heavy and greasy. I told her that was fine with me. I went and told my mother and James what we were doing and went out to the car to wait for Carla, who kept getting stopped by people to talk. I sat on the hood of the car in the church parking lot and lit a cigarette, glad to be outside and away from everyone.

When Carla finally came out, we drove to the outskirts of Port St. Lucie on US 1 and had a quiet dinner at Chili’s reminiscing. After dinner, Carla dropped me off at my mother’s house and picked up the bags she had left there. We made a plan for me to go to her hotel in Stuart the next day and go to lunch.

Saturday morning, I got up and dressed and headed to Stuart. We drove out to the beach and found a little Italian restaurant and spent another quiet meal talking about old times. On the way back to the hotel, I pulled off to the side of the road at one of the many little riverside alcoves. I had on a jade ring, one of the only things my grandmother had given me in my adult life. It was a gift for my twenty-third birthday. My grandmother had called me the weekend after my birthday as Mike and I were getting ready to go out and celebrate. She said that she realized that she had forgotten my birthday and wanted me to stop by her house so that she could give me my present. I told her that Mike and I had plans, but if it wasn’t too late we would stop by her house on our way home, since it was on the way. The evening ended early, so we did decide to stop by. When we got to my grandmother’s she told me to follow her upstairs. She brought me up to her dressing area which served as her jewelry box of sorts, with random jewelry strewn all across the counter. As we walked in she said, “Pick something. I forgot to get you something.” The jade ring had been the least ugly thing on the counter that I saw. Once we pulled over, I got out of the car; Carla followed me. I took the ring off, looked at it and said, “I’ve done my duty. It’s over,” and threw the ring into the river. It’s done. At least as far as Mama Moore is concerned. Now, I just want to go home.

We got back in the car and I dropped Carla back off at her hotel room. We said our goodbyes. Carla was leaving later that evening and I was finally going home the next day. I went back to my mother’s to pack for my trip. As soon as I walked in the door, my mother started in on me about the bathroom that I had been using being messy. I didn’t even react. I was so emotionally drained. I just went into the bathroom and took all of my stuff out and put it on top of my suitcase. When I came back out, my mother asked me, “What was the matter?” What do you mean, what is the matter? I didn’t say anything. I didn’t fight with you. I did what you asked and cleaned up the bathroom. I just want to go home. I told her nothing and went into the guest room. While I hibernated in my room, I remembered that I still hadn’t heard from Sean at the consignment store. I called the store again and asked to speak to Sean. This time I actually got him. Unlike all the other times we had spoken, this time he seemed snippy. He told me that he hadn’t been able to get much out of the house. That he had sold the organ for one hundred dollars at an auction. I told him that I could come down and pick it up right then if he liked. He said no, that the store would be closing soon and he would send me the money. I asked him about the painting. He said that he hadn’t been able to sell it yet, but he would let me know when he had. He then said that he was very busy and needed to go and hung up before I could say anything else. God, I just want to put this entire state out of my head and never come back. I thought about going down to the store with James, who at a healthy 6’5” might make Sean change his tune or calling Kathleen and asking her police officer husband Bobby, to go with me, but then just decided I didn’t care enough to mess with it.

Late that afternoon, I got a call from Mr. Gaines. He said that my grandmother’s sorority sisters had called him with concerns about my grandmother being cremated. Why is everyone so freaked out about cremation? He said that they had asked him to call me and ask if I would mind if they paid the expense to have my grandmother buried. I told him of course not. That would be fine. I told him to tell the sisters that if they wanted, I would call the cemetery that my grandmother had originally wanted to be buried in and give permission for them to bury her in the plot that she had originally wanted next to her second husband, Mr. Moore. Mr. Gaines said that he would tell them and hung up. About twenty minutes later, Mr. Gaines called back and said that he had called the ladies and given them my offer, but they had said to tell me, “No. They would rather not deal with that cemetery. It was outside of town and owned by white people. They would rather bury her in the black owned cemetery in Ft. Pierce.” You’ve got to be kidding me. Get me out of the assbackwards town!

All I could say was, “Okay, whatever they want to do is fine.” Mr. Gaines thanked me and hung up.

These women didn’t even bother to ask if I wanted to be there when my grandmother was buried. Didn’t even bother to tell me where the black cemetery was. The only reason I even know where my grandmother is buried is because they put the name of the cemetery on her death certificate.

The next day, as I drove to Orlando, I felt my spirits lift the closer I got to the airport. When the plane taxied down the runway, I said one last goodbye and good riddance to the state of Florida and the town of Ft. Pierce.