2007-02-23 - 4:35 p.m.
My parents gave us airplane tickets to New York for Hanukkah (unfortunately, they were on Jet Blue and we got caught in that whole fiasco, about which I�ll write later). The first few nights, we felt obliged to stay at their house. This was a big mistake. Oh, we had fun there (although mostly outside the house). But it was really hard for me to navigate around the house. Frustratingly, my folks had all sorts of reasons they wouldn�t do simple modifications to make the place more accessible.
It�s hard enough dealing with your folks normally, what with the lifetime of built-up memories � good, bad, disappointing, maddening � to handle. But add to that them saying no, they simply can�t drill a grab bar into the bathroom wall to make it easier to get on and off the toilet or get a running board-style step for the SUV to make it easier to climb up into it and, well. It�s absolutely heartbreaking. As it is, their house is a dangerous place for me, certainly not a safe refuge. I need to minimize the amount of time I spend there in the future.
The first night we were there, I noticed there was still no grab bar in the bathroom, even though I asked for one months ago. Nya had to help me get on and off the toilet. It was very embarrassing and definitely not fair to her or her back muscles. Thinking perhaps they didn�t know where to get a grab bar, we bought one the next day at a drugstore we happened to be in buying cigarettes for Nya. We brought it home and gave it to my dad. But he said that he just couldn�t drill into the bathroom tile to install it. It just couldn�t be done. After all, the tiles might break.
I protested that grab bars were installed in tile all the time (go into the handicapped stall in the nearest public restroom and see for yourself). You just bore the holes for the screws with a carbide drill bit. Besides, even if the tiles did break, there�d just be two cracked tiles at either anchor point of the bar. Surely that was worth my safety? But he continued to say the tiles would break and they couldn�t be replaced as they weren�t manufactured anymore. It seemed to be pointless to argue. Not backing down was apparently a point of pride with him.
But here�s the thing: pride is unfortunately a nicety I really don�t have time for anymore. Play time is over. I try really, really hard to not ask for much (in fact, it�s been noted that I sometimes don�t ask for help when I really should). Rather than installing a grab bar, Dad wants to undertake some arcane construction project, building an elaborate freestanding wooden rail that will somehow help me get on the toilet (although he�s not planning on anchoring it to anything). Judging from his track record, it will collapse the first time it�s used.
When my mom used a wheelchair last year due to a broken ankle, he decided to build her a wooden ramp to go down the front steps (this despite the fact that many companies sell well-constructed access ramps cheap). Unsurprisingly, it collapsed the first time she used it, spilling her out of her chair onto the ground outside (I have no idea how she got back up). Dad�s impracticality was incredibly disheartening. I mean, this is a man who worked in a garage when I was little and knew how to rebuild a carburetor. I thought he could do anything.
What happened? How did he get so incapable of doing simple things? Is it a sign of a deeper craziness? Or is it just age, that he finds himself adrift now in a carburetor-less world of fuel injection? In any event, I have no desire to be Example #2 in the current history of practical failures. I feel especially bad for my mother. I see my father every few months and his increasing lunacy is alternately amusing and depressing. But she wakes up next to him every day. The thought of being dependent on someone that deflated (as I know I would be if I didn�t have Nya and had to move in with them) chills me to the core.
Speaking of chilled to the core. My dad was driving us into New York Tuesday night and started rambling, as he often does. At one point he started talking about a step-running board thing he saw in a catalog that he thought would help mom get into the SUV. My ears perked up. That would help me too. My father has fallen victim to the middle-aged white guy desire to drive a gas-guzzling tank. His car is now behemoth and very hard for me (or maybe anyone, really) to get into, it being about five feet off the ground. I had to get a back-straining boost from Nya and have my dad pull me up from inside.
�Gee,� I said cautiously. �That sounds great. What happened? Did you get it?�
�No, they didn�t have it in the color I wanted.�
I must have misheard that. �I�m sorry?�
�See, they only had it in chrome and shiny black. I wanted matte black. Actually, matte black is the cheapest color to make it. But it wasn�t the cost. I just thought those other colors would look ugly next to the silver paint on here.�
He turned the wheel into a right so casually. He was so casual and relaxed about all of this. It was like he was just idly chatting. I realized he had no idea how much I was burning up hearing this. And how could I explain it to him? If he could so callously say something that hurt me so much, there was obviously no understanding that I might feel any differently. I tried to hide my tears. Well, I thought. It�s his car. Just like it�s his house. I only have to be here occasionally; it�s not a part of my regular life.
It�s not like we didn�t have any fun there at all. During the day on Tuesday, we took a bus across the Hudson River to the arts-colony village of Nyack. We went to an open Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a church there and then went to lunch at the Hudson House restaurant. I found this place using the hermeneutic I often use to find restaurants out of town (and sometimes even within town): seeing where I can get frequent flier miles. Hudson House looked pretty cool and actually was. It�s in the old town hall and jail of Nyack. Sort of romantical-ish-esque-like.
Tuesday night, Dad was driving us into the city because my sister was taking us to see �Evil Dead: The Musical!� As you might imagine, this was hilarious and awesome. Evil Dead was one of the first horror movies to self-consciously wink at its own grotesqueness. The play took it to the next level. As protagonist Ash says: �Good? Bad? Whatever. I have the gun�� We decided the play should really tour the college circuit where the Evil Dead movies have assumed cult status and are practically required viewing.
After we got home and I decided to try to return to the house as little as possible, I went into the living room to take a last look out the window. The house has a beautiful view from its elevated site out over the Hudson River and of the Tappan Zee bridge across it. I was thinking it�s one of the few aspects of the house I�d miss. Well, that and my mom�s cooking. So I rolled my chair over the very-tough-to-navigate living room carpet to take in the scene one last time.
It was a more sadly perfect moment than I ever could have expected. Reflected in the glass of the back door I was looking out was the light from the kitchen behind me. I could see my mom�s reflection peering out at me. You know, just to make sure I was all right. After a little while, I guess she couldn�t stand not knowing what I was doing because she curtly asked what I needed. I told her nothing. Thank you. But inwardly I was nodding.
Yes, of course. I was taking a last moment to myself. But I was out in the open, in full view of my mother. So I wasn�t really by myself. I was in my parents� space and if they wanted to say anything to me, who was I to complain? But I simply wouldn�t do this anymore. Their house was dangerous to me because it was theirs, not mine. I�d just try not to come there anymore.
� 2007 Geoff Gladstone
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