"The part I didn't want...": 2019 and My Return Home
Trigger Warning: This post is about family, parents and illness and contains graphic images.
All photography by Johnnie Ray Kornegay III (©2019 All Rights Reserved)
On Aging
Maya Angelou
From Poetry for Young People
When you see me sitting quietly,
like a sack upon a shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling
Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.
Of all of the blog entries I’ve written here, this has probably taken me the longest to formulate. I spoke to my father, mother and brother before writing this some weeks ago. I needed permission to tell this story from my perspective. Since the words seem mostly present, I am going to just write this. Let it be what it is. I’ll be breaking rules here. I’m going to put some business in the street. I’m going to go from present tense to past tense. From back there to over here. It is what it is.
2018 was truly a stellar year for me. Every goal I’d set for myself had been accomplished that year. It was a reminder about the power of manifesting, and being ready for what you’re asking for. There was part of it I didn’t ask for, though. Part of it I didn’t want.
Starting from around 2016, my father began to experience a severe decline in his health. I was on a once a year visit schedule, for the most part, and my brother was shouldering the burden of managing his declining health and his varying moods. I’ll pause to say, my father has been the most present figure I’ve had in my life. Not that my mother hasn’t been present - she definitely has been. But my father was and is a big black man who takes up space. So when I say present, I mean from that sense. Anyway, by the end of 2018, I was celebrating a banner year, and my parents, as a gift, flew me home for Christmas.
By then my father’s legs were already leaking fluid. He was walking. Slowly. Slowly walking. I didn’t know it then, but this was going to get much much worse. My father was already having to have regular visits to a wound care doctor. Not managing his Diabetes properly, poor eating, lack of movement had taken a toll on his body. I looked on during the Christmas visit, trying to make sense out of a lot of things I didn’t understand. I was grateful that my brother had been doing such a great job of caring for him, but I was also struggling through my own guilt. This ain’t really about that though.
I returned to my life.
I got a call that my father had returned to the hospital. I was encouraged not to come back, since I’d just been home.
I returned to my life.
It was the end of February, 2019, and I got another call that my father had returned to the hospital after being discharged, and I was encouraged to come back. I returned back a few days after he was discharged again. This time was different though. He had gone from leaking legs to severe neuropathic pain. He hadn’t slept in days. He was hallucinating. He wasn’t my father anymore. He was someone I didn’t recognize. I don’t know if I can describe the feeling I had of seeing my dad, who used to be very big and strong, shrink in size.
I had to learn new terms fast - Nephrology, Neuropathy. I had to learn about medications - Metformin, Gabapentin. Were there natural remedies to fix this? I spent $100 on vitamins. I wanted his pain to stop.
I wanted to return to my life. Where I was safe.
He would call me downstairs at night, because the house was too quiet. He wanted someone to talk to. He would spend hours telling me stories. I kept thinking “I don’t know how my mom can handle this. She needs rest. I need rest.” I would be in and out of sleep just reminding him to “breathe” and try and sleep. This went on for days. I changed my flight home, and stayed longer. It was the longest I’d been home in 15 years. While I was home he went back to the emergency room again. It was clear, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t make this better. There was no rule book for me to follow. My time was winding down.
I returned to my life.
I spent the rest of 2019 faking it, accomplishing things, trying things. I produced a movie in 2019. I interviewed a fine artist on stage at the High Museum of Atlanta. In 2019, I had my first international speaking engagement at Cinema Queer in Stockholm. It was a series of dreams made true.
I had to change my life.
My father ended up in a skilled nursing facility, where he remains right now. He’s managing much better. Some days are better than others. In the midst of it all, my mother also got sick and ended up in the hospital at the end of last year. It’s been a cyclone of hospitals, doctors and therapy ever since. That story, I’m not ready to tell quite yet.
I came home to Chester, PA, and in the end, I didn’t return to my life. It was no longer safe there.
I am making a new one - home.