So Many Questions, So Little Time…

My dad started having strokes about four years before he died. The first big one damaged his eyesight but he could still read what was on TV (across the room) without glasses whereas I could barely make out that there was a TV without my glasses, no stroke necessary. Even without his full faculties, he was still the guy in charge. 

Alas, another stroke a year later took his ability to reason, but somehow made him quite cheerful; jovial even. But it also opened the doors to all the questions he’d always wanted to ask, or felt compelled to ask.  Sometimes over and over and over. I told my brother that Dad didn’t have dementia. He just had a lot of questions.

I can relate. My first few years on earth felt like that. I could not figure out what was going on at my deeply dysfunctional home…and nobody else seemed to know either. I felt I should be doing something to make things feel better, safer; blaming myself for everything as children do. So I asked a lot of questions:

“Why is Mommy crying?”

“Why is the kitten laying so still after I gave it a bath?”

“Why is Daddy hitting my Bubba?” 

“Where is my Mommy?”

“Why is Nanny touching me like that?”

I got no answers. Shushed at best, slapped or threatened more likely. Or ignored. I certainly had no voice. I’m sure lots of kids feel like that at some level. But there was danger at my house if you didn’t know what was going on. So questions helped distract me and, on occasion, the perpetrators. 

I saw that in my dad toward the end as he strove to figure out what was going on.

His efforts to question everything seemed to be focused on “Don’t notice that I’m dying…” but I wouldn’t let him off the hook. I talked to him about dying. It’s who I am. I talk to everybody about it.

So there he was, my big, strong Daddy. Unable to take care of himself, or as he had once said to me, “I never thought I’d be unable to take care of myself…and you.” We had become friends in later years. I knew he loved me and wanted to make the world better for me. His way of making amends.

And his lovely, cheerful demeanor toward the end was nice, too. For the first time ever, he allowed others to take care of his needs. He was, finally, the beloved child in that role. My cousin, my aunt, the staff at the nursing home and the hospice angels…they took good care of him, even if they were smiling at his antics. Or frowning at the perpetual questions.

He didn’t stop. He asked questions until the last moment.

I, on the other hand, learned to stop questioning, just to be silent and as invisible as possible. It was a survival technique when I was a child. In the Twelve-Step Program of Adult Children of Alcoholics (and other resources), that’s known as being the Lost Child. It’s a role I used to stay safe, or at least as safe as I could under the circumstances of my young life.

As with many challenges, of course, it also was a gift. I learned the value of solitude, which allowed me to blossom as a writer. I use that mechanism to ask myself – and the Universe – questions. And more often than not, I find answers on the paper, or through the keyboard.

I have fewer questions now. Not that I know all the answers; just that I’ve reached the point in life where all the answers seem to be: …and so it is.

By living the best life I can, being helpful where possible while maintaining self-care, I’m almost certain that I will have far fewer questions at the end of life than my dad did. I wish the same for us all.