The Year of Living Hopefully

Well it seems I’ve officially become a sandwich. I think that’s what we’re called: The Sandwich Generation. We had kids a little later, so while we’re still caring for our children we are beginning to have to care for our parents as well. We are sandwiched in between the young who need us still and the old who are beginning to need us for the first time.

This is not a good sandwich. I am not qualified to be the meat or even a condiment or even shredded iceberg lettuce. Luckily I have two sisters who can join me here in the middle, and maybe together we’ll become something worthwhile. But for now, it just feels scary. I don’t want to be in this sandwich at all. Honestly I don’t like even the open-face variety in this particular scenario, because both taking care of my special needs teen (and eventually special needs adult) and taking care of my parents are overwhelming, confusing jobs. At least I have partners in both.

Last week I made several attempts to write a blog. I still might write about last week, but for now suffice it to say that we entered Golden State Warriors territory with the attendance. Five whole days in a row! I think it’s a record for Maddie, at least for this year. I’ve been basking in the glory of this success while keeping in mind that life with her is always–always–a day-to-day experience. Last week was great! I hope today doesn’t suck!

And then this weekend the shit hit the fan. That’s such an excellent metaphor. It describes both the unpredictability and chaos of the event as well as the difficulty of cleaning up the mess.

And this time the “shit” was my dad.

For the last ten years or so, he has been in questionable mental health. He has suffered debilitating anxiety since becoming so ill he very nearly died. His body recovered, but his mind did not. It has been difficult, painful, confusing and upsetting to watch him suffer. And even more so to see the effect his mental health has on my mom. He rarely goes out, has difficulty completing small tasks, and fixates on every possibility of something going wrong. He is easily frustrated. He has a million ridiculous ideas. Thank goodness for sports, though. He is at least able to spend time focusing on Giants and Warriors games.

My sisters and I try to uncover the truth of exactly what goes on in our parents’ house, but my mom is so private and proud that it’s hard to extract the information we need. “We’re okay,” she’ll say. “We just keep going.” Sometimes she’ll say, “Dad’s having a bad day,” but when I ask her what that means exactly, she isn’t forthcoming. Perhaps it’s just too hard to describe. Perhaps she’s afraid she’s going to make her life sound worse than it is, in which case she’ll be “complaining” or, worse, giving her kids something to worry about. My mom is The Helper. She is The Caretaker. She is the Strong One. She is not the needy or sick or helpless. Those are roles she cannot accept.

After a bit of an outburst on Saturday (I wasn’t there), it became clear that Dad needs more help than one person can provide. He needs professional help. My mom needs him to have professional help. He needs mental health support and my mom needs to extricate herself from the spinning vortex that has swallowed my dad.

So my sisters and I have decided he should move into a Veterans home. We think that’ll be the right setting for him. He served in the Air Force in the 60s, and although he was never dispatched to Vietnam, he is still a veteran during wartime, so he qualifies. In my incredibly uneducated opinion, I suspect he does suffer from PTSD, at the very least from the time he nearly died ten years ago. Not so much from the fear of dying, but from the relief he seemed to have at the prospect. He was almost looking forward to it, and then the doctors realized they had misdiagnosed him and he would eventually be just fine. He went from being miserable to relieved and then what? Kind of disappointed, I hate to say.

So now we’re at a point where something must be done. And once again, as I have with Maddie so many times, I feel utterly rudderless. Whom do we call? What if that doesn’t work out? Can we afford it? What if Mom just can’t do it? What if Dad refuses? What on earth do we do? Where is the fricking manual for this?

It’s just about 8:00 and I’m about to wake Maddie up. A sleepover weekend usually spills over into the week as Maddie needs to recover after even a single night of not enough sleep. So I let her sleep in this morning and miss her first class of the the day. I am having anxiety about it, though. I bet she won’t get up. I just know it.

And here I will be, lost at sea with her again too. Frustrated and anxious about Maddie. Anxious and afraid about my mom and dad.

This is the worst sandwich ever.