The Balancing Act: Losing Jenny (part 3)

It occurred to me following my last post that my father's story is so incredible that people might find it hard to swallow. I told Mike, "People will never believe one person accomplished all of this in his lifetime. No one could possibly have the energy or ability to do all of this." We both laughed as we discussed it. Mike, having grown up three houses down from me watched as all of this took place. He witnessed airplanes taking shape in our driveway, the various birds of prey tethered to perches in our front yard, and frequently waved to my mother when he walked to and from school as she worked in our garden and helped Dad with his many projects. "Yes", he agreed, "but it happened exactly like that. Just tell it as it is." The more I have thought about it, the greater my resolve to honor Dad's efforts. He is an amazing man and he deserves to be remembered for everything he was and is. He has earned the right to have his story told.

After the blood clot in Dad's leg and his slow recovery it took a while for us to get our footing as caregivers. Jenny, Tom and I had not been aware of how much time Hillary and Paula were spending with Dad following the close of his business and his escalating health and memory problems. All we knew for sure was Dad's memory was getting worse and he required at least one visitor a day to check on him. Following his stay at the hospital and our subsequent round the clock caregiver schedule I don't think Jenny, Tom or I really thought this would continue indefinitely. Deep down I think we expected it to be a temporary thing  and eventually we could go back to the weekly lunch or dinner visit. That would change with a phone call from Paula. I am only guessing that she approached all of us this way but I remember answering my cell at work. "Erin", she explained, "You know he gets very disappointed when you leave right after dinner". Actually, I did not know that at all. "Okay, I will stay and visit longer", I promised.

At the time I was in unusually good shape and had recently run my first 5K. This is significant because throughout my school years, my parents never encouraged me to participate in sports. I am not sure why that was but have often thought it may have been because I was so tiny. Perhaps they thought I would get trampled by bigger and stronger kids. At age 40 I woke up one day and realized that I really had no idea how fit I could actually be. I began to walk, then to run, then to pursue overall fitness. It was a wonderful outlet and, I like to think, a healthy example for my kids. In a way Dad's health issues occurred at the best possible time for me, in that I was more physically capable of dealing with my new role as part time caregiver.

The next time I came over I showed up an hour early with my dog, Marty. I entered through the side door as always, having just come from a run. Paula was there on the back porch with Dad about to take a walk. I think she was skeptical (maybe just hopeful) that we would take her seriously about Dad needing longer visits. Her reaction to my early appearance was borderline ecstatic.

"THERE'S my wonderful sister who I love so very much!" she gushed. I knew her reaction was partially surprise that I was there to relieve her so early.

She left and I continued with the walk around the back yard starting with a precarious dismount from the porch. He was still unsteady on his feet and as he stepped down into the grass it was mostly gravity doing the work. "TIMBEEEER!!" I joked as I grabbed his arm and helped him get his footing. "Wiseass!" he said with a chuckle. We walked around, I told him about my day, he talked about what he remembered about his. Then we went in and ate dinner. This was how most visits went. Nothing too creative. A walk, general conversation, a meal and maybe a TV show.

The polar opposite of my increased health was Jenny's failing health. Jenny had long had a problem with alcoholism. Jenny was born lucky in almost every way: beautiful, smart, funny and tough. In my opinion these assets may have also been her downfall. With everything going for her I think she felt invincible. She could do anything...and get away with anything. Jenny had begun drinking in high school. She would sneak out and go to clubs at night. The door men would let her in and men bought her drinks. She began experiencing blackouts before she was 20.

We had tried everything to help her change but her stubborn nature prevented any permanent recovery. I can remember so many fights between Jenny and my parents. They begged her repeatedly to stop drinking, making multiple offers of help. She moved back home between abusive boyfriends, usually with the promise to turn over a new leaf.  Each time I think she really intended to follow through with her promises.  Invariably, though, she would backslide and make some type of explosive exit. I remember One time in particular when I was in my early 20's Jenny was leaving the house, my mother in hot pursuit. Jenny was smashed and Mom, who had discovered a bottle of Tanqueray in her purse, was trying to wrestle it away from her. An ugly tug of war ensued, ending with Jenny jumping in her car and speeding away. She would later call me and angrily tell me her point of view. "Did you see how mean she looked?!" Jenny asked me as if I had not witnessed the whole thing. "All she wanted was to take that bottle!"
"Well...yeah." I replied. She really did not get it. To her, Mom was just trying to take away something she loved purely to be mean...not because Mom loved her.

The years went by. Citations, lost jobs, offers of help followed by alienation. Jenny could not break her self destructive pattern.  She made her last genuine effort to clean herself up shortly after Mom's death. On her birthday that year Hillary bought her a button that read "I survived damn near EVERYTHING!" We all thought it was appropriate and funny. She certainly had the attitude of a survivor.
Dad could tell she was really trying and knowing she was struggling financially and having car trouble, he decided to get her a gift. He bought her a little used sports car in her favorite color, yellow. As cars go it was not expensive and it was in excellent condition. He invited Hillary and Paula to help him spring the surprise on Jenny.  He had Paula park the car in back of the car port. That area was in clear view from Dad's back yard but completely hidden if she entered from the front or side of the house. They invited Jenny into the back yard on a ruse to plan "where to put a water fountain".
"I think you should put it in the center of the yard", Paula improvised. "That way you could see it from here..."she said standing at one end of the porch, the car just out of view.
"...and you could also see it from here..." Hillary said moving Jenny closer to her surprise.
"...and from here, too." Paula said moving her in full view.
Jenny was confused. "Well, yeah, you could see it basically from anywh..." she started to say but then noticed the car.
"Dad, did you get a new car?" asked Paula.
"It's not my car", Dad said.
"It's not my car", Hillary added.
"It's not my car", Paula smiled.
"Well, it's not MY car", Jenny said.
"YES, IT IS!!!" they all said in unison. It's safe to say Jenny was blown away and deeply moved by this gift. She called it her little lemonade and took perfect care of it.

Although, she appreciated and would never forget this gesture, the beginning of the end was near. A few months later Jenny was in the hospital. The doctors doubted she would be coming out. Her body could only take the constant flood of poison she was pouring into it for so long. Hillary was usually the one who would pull her up and help her back on her feet. She had seen her recover time and time again, each time coming closer and closer to death. Hillary asked us all to visit Jenny, no matter how angry we might be with her. I went to the hospital on my lunch break. When I arrived at her room I looked through the window. At first all I could do was stand there and look in at her. She was so yellow and bloated, trapped in her self created prison. I didn't know what to say to her. Then she saw me standing outside her room. I have often wondered what she thought when she saw her little sister staring in at her with a mixture of worry and disgust. I walked in and gave her a kiss. "How ya doin'?" I asked lamely.
"The doctors think I'm dying...like hell!" she said defiantly.
Her reddish brown hair was oily and matted under her head. I offered to brush it for her and dug a brush and a scrunchy out of my purse. She thanked me and I managed to get it into a pathetic topknot. The visit ended as awkwardly as it began.
"Well I have to get back to work. Don't die." I said.
"I won't. Thank you for coming, Erin. Love you."
I gave her a kiss and left.  "I'm mad at you, but love you, too."
As I walked to the crossing in front of the parking garage I saw a man on a motorcycle cross in front of me. He lifted his visor. It was Tom. "Need a lift?" he asked.  "Sure do!" I said. It was a long way to my car and I appreciated the ride. As he dropped me off I thanked him.
"No prob", he said and paused. "This sucks."
"Yeah, sucks big. I didn't even know what to say to her."
"All we can do is hold her hand. The rest is up to her", he said. He was right.

When Jenny bounced back against all odds, Hillary told me that she really believed Jenny had a superhuman physiology. Nothing could kill her. That hospital visit scared Jenny straight for a while...about six months in fact. As always she began to backslide again and shortly after Dad's blood clot she was admitted to the hospital again, her abdomen so bloated that she looked pregnant. Her liver could not filter the alcohol anymore. Again the doctors told her she had to stop drinking or she would die. I think, though, she had really reached the point of no return. Without the alcohol that was killing her she would go into delirium tremors (DTs) and seizures which could also kill her. There was no way out. I did not visit her in the hospital this time, feeling that  her inability to control her drinking was now causing unnecessary stress to her family, particularly Dad in his weakened state. It was October and on my day off Mike and I took the girls to the Texas State Fair. I was determined to have a good time with my family and not think about Alzheimer's, alcoholism or hospitals for just one day...but that was not in the cards.  I was watching Allison on a bungee jump ride. The line had been long and tiresome and she was finally hooked up. I had my phone camera poised to catch her moment of fun when my phone began to ring.  It was Jenny.
"Erin, why is everyone so mad at me? I'm sick, I can't help it!" she whined.
"You CAN help it, you just DON'T!" I said angrily.
"But it's easier for you. You aren't sick. You don't know how hard it is", she insisted.
"Are you serious??? WE don't know how hard it is???" I asked loudly,"We're the one's having to take up the slack when you put yourself in the hospital. Don't you ever think about what you are doing to Dad? What it would do to him if one of his children died? Clean yourself up before it's too late. I don't even want to talk to you right now. You're a loser and I hate what you are doing to our family!"
"I know", she said sheepishly, "I'm sorry".
"Yes, you are", I fired at her and hung up.
Allison's ride was over and I had missed it.I was livid. Mike had come to the rescue and took pictures with his phone, but I didn't know this until later. I called Paula later and told her what happened. She said, "She needed to hear that. Jenny called me after she talked to you and asked if she was really hurting Dad. I told her 'Yeah, Jen. We really need you and you're not here'".

Her condition continued to deteriorate over the next four months. We all watched helplessly as her periods of  resolve grew shorter and shorter. I was angry with her for one of her binges that landed her in the hospital and I reminded Hillary of the birthday button saying, "She's like a cockroach! She does something that almost kills her and she comes back stronger and more disgusting then ever!" It was a cruel analogy but Hillary understood what I meant. It was exhausting to hear her swan song over and over like a broken record only to have her bounce back and have to go through it all over again.

As sick as she was during those last few months, Jenny made a heroic effort to keep up with the weekly visitation schedule. She would come over and bring something wonderful from the deli where she worked or make something from whatever she found in Dad's fridge. Her visits were filled with lively stories of the rundown neighborhood where she lived leaving Dad in stitches. Jenny's delivery of the comical side of life in the 'hood was flawless. Whatever her faults, Jenny had such a good heart. In one of the last pictures I took of Jenny she is sitting on Dad's lap and wearing a Santa hat with the words "I've been good!" printed across it. I told her it was false advertising but it really is a cute picture.

Jenny's declining condition didn't completely eclipse the next catastrophe. February brought a rare snow storm to North Central Texas. Hillary went over and covered Dad's outside pipes and turned the inside faucets on to a trickle. When the storm hit most of us were iced in for several days and we had to rely on phone visits with Dad and hope he would not ignore our reminders to take his meds. The roads finally cleared, I had one of the first visits. I came in through the carport entry as usual but noticed a constant flow of water from the roof of the garage and carport. As dad opened the door to greet me I asked where all the water was coming from. "Oh, that's just the snow melting off the roof", he said. I didn't have that much experience with snow runoff and took his word for it.

The next time I came over, however I changed my mind. The same continuous flow of water was splashing down from the roof but there was no snow left. Once again Dad came out to greet me and I asked, "Dad, where's all that water coming from?" "Oh, that's probably just runoff from the snow", he said again. "Not possible, Dad", I said beginning to feel alarmed. "Is your workshop unlocked?"

I cautiously opened the workshop door, braced for what I might see. Nothing could have prepared me for the catastrophe on the other side. A water pipe in the ceiling had burst in Dad's workshop causing the ceiling to buckle and collapse. Soggy bits of drywall covered all of dad's tools, expensive equipment, and the skeleton fuselage of his kit plane. The floor was completely submerged in several inches of water as the pipe continued to flood the room. I closed the door and said, "Believe me, Dad, you don't want to look." I began making phone calls, first to Paula who told me to call a plumber and that she would be right over. I called two plumbers trying to find the one who could get there the soonest. I then took a short video and sent it to all of my siblings. "This is too painful to believe", I captioned. Within 15 minutes all of us were standing in my dad's kitchen having surveyed the damage. It really was unnecessary to have all of us there but I think because we all knew what the loss of his workshop would mean to Dad, we felt obligated to come over and make whatever effort we could to try to save it.

One by one they each went and saw the disaster for themselves. We stood for a few minutes not knowing quite what would be appropriate to say. Tom finally summed up what we were all thinking, "But, other then THAT, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" We all laughed. Yes, it was like that.

The plumber arrived and was able to shut off the water to the workshop. It was decided that an additional shut off valve would be added in the event of freezing weather to prevent such a problem from happening again.

Our cleanup and salvage job took weeks. We gave up several weekend afternoons sifting through the rust and disintegrated drywall trying to find anything that was worth rescuing. So many tools and parts had to be thrown away. I was unfamiliar with many of the tools and kept asking Tom, "What's this?"
"That's a band saw blade."
"What's this?"
"That's a cleco."
"What's this?"
"That's a rusted piece o' crap."
After a while he put his rust covered hands on his hips and said, "Let's just throw most of it away. It's all just rusted crap. None of these boxes have anything irreplaceable. The only things that are irreplaceable are the big machines and they're covered by insurance." He was right. For all of the hours we spent pulling rusty odds and ends out of the workshop, not much was worth salvaging. After that Dad spent very little time in there anyway.

During February it really looked like Jenny was starting to bounce back. I came over the Saturday after the workshop disaster and she was still there with her dog, telling dad another story from the hood. Her abdominal swelling had gone down considerably. Perhaps Hillary was right. Jenny was superhuman. She just might make it.
A week later, though, she was back in the hospital. Hillary sent me a message asking me to visit her. I did but decided not to bring Mike or the girls. She was not in ICU and they didn't need to see this. Her belly was again bloated with fluid. Would this ever end?

Again she rallied, just enough to attend Kelly's birthday party. Jenny and Kelly always had a special relationship and I was glad she was well enough to be there to celebrate with her niece. As always I planned her party for two weekends before her actual birthday, because I was not sure when my in-laws would be traveling and knew they would want to be there to celebrate with her.  Jenny and Dad were not able to drive themselves so Paula picked them up and they all came together. Jenny was still so swollen all the way to her ankles and her eyes were yellow. Within a week Jenny would enter the hospital for the last time.

Deep down I think we all knew it was the end...all of us except Jenny, that is. Hillary, who had not only been Jenny's sister but her surrogate mother her entire adult life, came to visit her with flowers. Jenny looked at her as if she were crazy. What were the flowers for? She would be out in a few days, like always, right? No, she didn't want a priest. She wasn't dying, why would she want a priest? Actually, even if she believed was dying she wouldn't have wanted a priest so that was a moot point. Eventually she lost consciousness and we began the vigil. Her common law husband, Joey, stayed by her side for most of her final battle, much to Dad's dismay. Dad was not fond of this person whom he felt was, at least in part, responsible for Jenny's last year of backsliding. While I understand why Dad felt that way, in the end there was nothing to be gained from pointing fingers.
Kelly was very upset that week. "I'll never forgive her if she dies on my birthday", she said angrily. I think, like all of us, she would have forgiven Jenny, but her anger was legitimate.  Kelly's birthday passed but it was definitely close. In her last two days we all kept watch in turns, ready for the final call. Her best friend from high school, Gina, also stayed with us. The doctors finally told us that we needed to either turn off the machines and let her go or her lungs could explode from the pressure of being on a ventilator for an extended period of time.  We decided it was time. The circulation in her fingers and toes had been compromised for days. She was no longer recognizable as Jenny. Her skin was a burnt orange color from all of the blood and waste her body could not flush out.
We gathered around her as we had with mom. This was different, though. Joey could not watch and left the hospital earlier that day.  Gina and Hillary took the places of honor at her head. The room was quiet except the heart monitor. Hillary broke the silence, observing, "Is it just me or does her heart beat seem stronger now?"
"No, that's our Jenny. She's fighting it. No one's going to tell her when to go", I said. Everyone smiled. It was true. That would be just like her.
"That's right, Jen",  Jack said, "You fight it".
A few more minutes went by and Gina said, "Maybe she needs some music?" We all agreed that might help...but what? All of us started looking through our Ipods, smartphones and other devices. "How about 'Spirit in the Sky'?" Gina offered. She turned it on and tossed her Ipod gently on top of the blanket, satisfied with her selection. "Okay, Jenny...go find your mother", Gina instructed. There was something so casual about how she did it and her particular song choice that most of us had to keep from cracking a smile. Paula would later tell me that Hillary found it a bit disturbing, a little too upbeat. Personally, though, I think Jenny would have loved it. That's why Gina was her best friend. She had a way of reading Jenny like no one else ever could. I can imagine our stubborn Jenny refusing to leave, then hearing that song and bopping her way into the next world. She took the cue and danced away, her monitor letting us know when she left.

It was strange. I was fine; no urge to cry.  Was I stone? I mentioned it to Mike and he speculated that it had not hit me yet. We arrived home, took off our coats and acted as if nothing had happened. Mike  began fiddling with his fish tank so I went back to my computer and opened Facebook...and there she was. Gina had posted Jenny's senior picture. It was, in my opinion, the most beautiful picture that was ever taken of her. That was all it took. I broke. Mike rushed into the bedroom, alarmed to have heard my hysterical sobbing from three rooms away.
"How can someone take THAT", I said, gesturing to the picture, "and turn it into the thing we saw in the bed tonight?? How can anyone throw away so much for a bottle???" I demanded. There were no answers. She could never tell us why and all of the love in the world would never bring her back.

A few days later we had a memorial service. So many beautiful flower arrangements arrived at the facility; friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances and even former lovers all showing their love for Jenny. I made red and yellow ribbons for people to wear on their lapels in Jenny's honor. Allison assigned herself to pass them out to arriving guests. My nephew, Bradley, made a slideshow of her life. It was a beautiful thing for people to watch as they made their way in. We requested that the officiant be non-religious. I am not sure how, but that message was lost and he rained hellfire and brimstone at us. He also spoke about how Jenny knew God loved her and in the end accepted his saving grace. We all kind of looked at each other quizzically. Were we at the wrong memorial service? I know that my entire row was biting our their tongues to keep from laughing. I never thought a sermon could be so freaking funny!

 Tom spoke, starting with the last text that Jenny sent him and how she never quite mastered technology but, oh, how she tried. His speech was a wonderful tribute to her.  Then Gina spoke...best part of the memorial by far. She spoke about sneaking into clubs in their high school days and what a hell raiser Jenny was. Gina also spoke about her final year of life when Jenny had imbibed a bit much and called her for a ride home. "Don't tell, Hillary, please. I'll never hear the end of it!" Still trying to get away with everything to the very end. Finally Gina said, "With all that happened I will always remember her as the hilarious girl we all loved. I will remember her as we all called her in high school: Jenny-Damn-O'Houlihan!" The room erupted in applause. Yes, that is definitely how she would want to be remembered.

(to be continued)