Notes from Maine - 2020/08/26

It has been a long, hard, emotional week so far, and it’s only Tuesday as I write this.

Today was sweaty and full of lots of truth.

My father has a drink every evening. He has barely missed a cocktail hour since he was eighteen, as far as I can tell. For the past couple of months, he has been staying at my house as he recovers from a long illness.

We’ve counseled him that it’s a bad idea for him to drink (anything) after 7pm, and most nights that has been fine. Last night, he exploded with anger. When I said that I wouldn’t help him, he took matters into his own hands and got his drink by himself.

Honestly, this is fine with me. I told him that I’ve put myself into the position of his caretaker, and I didn’t want to help him do something that would compromise him physically. But, at the same time, he is an adult and I believe that he should be able to make his own decisions. There’s another conversation we could have over whether or not he has a problem, but that’s not something I expect him to make any progress on at the age of 84.

The results of that argument were shocking. He stood and reached up over his shoulder-height to get a glass down from the shelf. Then, he maneuvered well enough in a wheelchair to get all the ingredients for his drink from the various cabinets. All these feats were way beyond his abilities as we knew them. Today, I was a bit angry. Dad didn’t remember his achievement, so I reminded him and tried to explain why it was so maddening that he is only able to stand and do things on his own when it’s over alcohol. When the therapist (who we’re paying for) is here, he says, “I can’t stand.”

Ugh.

He accomplished quite a bit today on his own. We’ve raised our expectations.