When you leave everything falls apart...

It is no small thing, for a mother to entrust someone else with her child/children. So when the sister took off with our mum to go and meet with the doctor about my father on Friday, leaving my bed-ridden, unable-to-move father and her three year old and 8-month twins with my brother and I, it was a great show of trust. And it was a big accomplishment, for both of us, I think.

It started off great. Smiling children. Playing MarioKart with Uncle Mike. And then everything went pear-shaped.

The toddler wouldn't go down for his nap. The babies started to cry. Then my Dad needed to use the restroom. No big deal, normally. But Dad had experienced another stroke on Wednesday morning, and had since deteriorated to not being able to walk. My brother and I had to carry him to the restroom and then carry him back to his chair. If my dad were a 5'7", 150lb man it wouldn't be a big deal, after all, my brother and I are strapping, strong people. But dad is 6'4", 250+ and practically carrying him to the restroom is backbreaking, time-consuming, sweaty, painful work.

All the while, the babies were bawling and I was panicking, and wondering how on earth, how.in.the.world. was my mother going to manage this with only my brother to help her after my sister and I left? Really? How?

Later, when the drama died down, I issued an edict to the sister: "You're not leaving again. When you leave, everything falls apart." (That was proven not once this past week.)

On Tuesday, I went for a walk with my father. We walked slowly, hand in hand, in his neighborhood and chatted. From Wednesday to Friday, Dad lost the ability to walk on his own, to think clearly, to talk, to sit up in bed.

By Sunday he was paralyzed on his left side. Finally, my mother and brother got him to the hospital (he point-blank refused to go until then) after brother injured his back in trying to pick Dad up off the floor again. After a CT scan, it was discovered that Dad had at some point hit his head and was hemorrhaging in his brain. Emergency surgery went well. And that's all we know at this point.

Being adults means that we all survived childhood. Our parents trusted us at times to the care of others, but mostly as children our care fell to them. Our upbringing, every decision about what to feed us, how to clothe us and how to educate us fell to them. It took long suffering, tenacity, long, long, long, grueling hours and short nights. It took trust. So much. Now my sister and I are "grown up" and trust is again required in our parent-child relationship. But this time it is not for our care, but for the care of my father.

Life is a writhing, lively, circuitous thing, isn't it?

The sister wrote a beautiful blog post about the trip, click here.