The moments before 02/05/2019

It has taken me several months to get to the place where I could come back here. I’m in the car coming back from Bloomington and it hit me; that urge to write. I had to ask my siblings about this one because we are all offshoots of our dad. I don’t usually write about things involving anyone but the depths of my very soul. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting anyone with my words, written or otherwise.

So. It begins.

And it ends.

All at once.

In the world of education, perhaps by May we are charging through with the excitement of an end. The excitement is held more in the students and might not always have positive connotations. Excitement can come in fear and behaviors different than before. The point is it gets busy and we are trying to stay the constant for everyone, while at times it feels chaotic both in school and at home.

I hadn’t heard from him in a while. He usually called me when I was right in the middle of my injection prep. I would be putting down my alcohol prep pad, having just swabbed my designated spot. The phone would ring right then, so as the alcohol dried I would answer his call. I did it at different times, so it was really weird that he would call me during that time.

Usually in the off weeks I would hear from him, but it wasn’t uncommon to not hear from him for a week or more. I knew he was exercising his independence. But a week did go by without a call. His sister, my aunt, called me twice in the few days before. Highly unusual but dad had just been in rehab less than 6 weeks prior and we had been communicating more than usual due to that. She mentioned she hadn’t heard from him. I made a mental note to call him the minute I had a free hour.

Wednesday, May 16th came. And so did an email from Peapod. Grocery delivery. Since dad lived alone but didn’t drive, he used their delivery service when he needed to. He was struggling with email recently so as soon as I got that email, I called him to tell him a perk from which he might benefit. His phone went straight to voicemail. “No. That’s not right.” I said this aloud as I was texting my sister, “When was the last time you talked to Dad?” I called him again.

Straight to voicemail.

My sister replies almost instantly. She’s texting our brother. We determine it’s been about a week since any of us have heard from him.

About a week, we collectively determine.

We had all been doing OK I think, checking on him. But that chaos at the end of the year must have gotten in the way.

That moment.

“I’m thinking I am going to need to go check on Grandpa,” I was saying softly as I was hugging and kissing my kids goodnight. Husfriend’s ears zeroed in on my words and double checked on how long it had been since any of us had heard from him.

“A week.”

“I’m going.”

“But…you know it could be…”

“I’m going.”

That moment.

Chaos of getting kids to bed, Husfriend getting shoes on to go.

“I’ll go get the key to his apartment.”

I almost made it to that key before my emotions welled up and I had to stop because my body became physically explosive. I had to stop to get sick.

And all at once, the house was silent but for the far off sound of one of the kids radios, lulling them to sleep.

These moments:

I chose quite deliberately the place I wanted to be. Comfort.

And the position in which I remained. Official and at the ready.

I couldn’t handle the silence. I called the Husfriend. I couldn’t let him go in there without one of us being there with him. I needed to be with my dad. The closer he got to my dad’s house, the more my gut twisted. I had to hang up to get sick again.

I called him back. I spoke with him about nothing important. I scrolled and heard both Manny and Laurel,  consciously aware that I was spending these moments doing unimportant things.

Husfriend got to my dad’s house and said, “OK, I’m going inside.” I yelped, “No! Knock. Just knock.” He was so good. I went down the list and heard him echoing everything I was saying.

Knocking on his door, “Joe? Joe, it’s Heidi’s husband. Joe, it’s Eric.” I didn’t want my dad to be confused. I knew he would know his own name. I knew that most of the time he would know mine. After that, he would possibly need to hear the relationship between (first) me and (then) Eric. I thought of my dad’s cognitive impairments and what would be the right thing to say and in what order. And Eric just parroted what I said.

“OK, I”m going in.”

“No!” Again, I gave him a script.

Knocking on the window. “Joe? Joe, it’s Heidi’s husband, Eric.”

“It’s dark. I can’t see in the back door, either.”

“OK…go back to the front door. Knock again. Can you smell anything? OK, go in.”

“It’s dark, hang on, I need to put you on speakerphone so I can use my light.”

 

 

 

“I found him…Joe? Joe?”

“On the floor, is he on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Is he…Eric, is he?”

“I think so.”

I jumped up. “Eric, is he or is he not dead?”

“I think he is…”

“Eric!”

“Yes. He is.”

“Call 911. I need to call Kristen.”

Hang up. Shaky breathing.

These moments. These moments my body already knew was coming.

Unable to sleep that night, “Trauma. This is your reaction to trauma.” Over and over to myself. “It’s not forever. It’s trauma.”

We pieced together that my dad died quickly. Nothing quite like being married to someone who really has gone into scenes like this one (and far worse), all in work mode. Because he went in for me, he saved me from being the one to walk in and find my dad, after having died around 8 days prior.

Eight days.

So you can imagine these are the two words and all of the images that go along with them being replayed again and again in our heads over the next several days.

I’ve heard people say that this will be one of the most difficult things I will ever go through.

I loved the man.

But also. It’s not. It’s not the most difficult. Maybe because I’ve been through worse. Maybe because he spent his entire life mourning his own death. Not his life. Not mourning his life. He mourned thoughts of when he would die. He mourned the loss it would be for us. He mourned every loss and made it clear it was all killing him. My entire 38 years with him, he was in mourning.

Mental illness is not a joke. I could not understand it.

It came to me after a few days that I needed to write my dad’s eulogy. I don’t know that his service was “him”, but it absolutely was what we all needed it to be for him. Or at least for me. I’m going to share it with you here. Just know that I 100% depart from the text on a lot of this. I talked forever.

Joe is my dad. Dad was born in Evansville, IN to Richard and Maxine Baumgartner. Richard had a daughter, Mariann, through a previous marriage. After my grandparents married and had Joe, Patricia was added to complete the family. Eventually they moved to Camby, IN. This is where my dad spent most of his growing up years. The pictures we share today are likely to tell better stories than I ever could for those years of his life.

Earlier this year, I asked my dad to write down memoirs from anything he could think of. It didn’t matter if I knew the story or even if I was there for the actual event, I just wanted to hear his memories. I have no idea if he ever wrote anything down from my request, mostly because he wrote everything down. It’s been a lot to dig through. I haven’t found those things yet. But a few months after I asked this of him, he called me. He said he had been thinking about it and he wanted to share one of his first memories with me. He remembers being at home in Camby and his dad was coming home from work. They watched him drive up over the hill and come barreling down the road toward home. He and my aunt would wait as patiently as small children can until his car was parked until they tackled him, and each grabbed onto one of my Grandpa’s legs as he attempted to walk into the house. This was significant as stories go because my dad didn’t have the best relationship with his dad, but also, his dad was one of his first memories. What’s more; it was a happy memory. It was also a very similar story to one of my own memories of my dad coming home from work at the end of the day. Our dad taught us the importance of loving unconditionally.

Apparently in his younger years, my dad liked numbers enough to go into banking. I don’t remember so much of that part of his life, but in the past several weeks we’ve gone through enough boxes filled with numbers scrawled in endless journals, notebooks, diaries, random scraps of paper, Ziploc bags full of unruled pages, countless sheets of legal pad notes, and shoe boxes filled with checkbook ledgers dating back to the 1960’s that I am thoroughly convinced he enjoyed budgeting at one point. It would be hard to say which (if any) of us picked up the same joy for math. However, our dad taught us to value what gives you passion.

Our dad loved music. Oddly enough, the song that kept playing over and over in my head after I learned of his death was Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees. From a young age, I remember the man strutting around doing that finger point Dad dance thing, muttonchops blowing in the wind. He used his music to work through some rough years and used his music to bring him joy. Our dad taught us that music can be a powerful tool.

One of the things that gave our dad the most joy in life was his dining room table. It was always an ordeal, “Come sit at the table.” Even when there was no meal, he wanted you to be there with him at the table. He had a massive dining room table. It was a pretty solid wood. Round. And had a piece of glass that sat on top. So much time was spent at this table with no centerpiece, no placemats, and no food. Just people. Sure, there would be feasts. In recent years, there were boxes or piles of papers riddled with numbers. But a few years ago, had he known you were coming over, he would clear off the whole thing in hopes you would sit there with him. As we are all sort of grown-ups, we struggled with what to do with this table after his death. It quickly became apparent that it’s not about the table. It’s about what the table represents. His table represented family. Laughter. Tough talks. Come to Jesus meetings as he called them. Hard decisions. Celebrations. More than anything in the world he loved family. Our dad taught us to value our families and the time we have with them.

I think we spend most of our lives being taught by our parents. If we are paying attention, we may learn from what we see them do. We may learn from what we don’t see them do so well. Many of us go through a patch of years where we decide what type of parent we definitely will not be. Many of us don’t even think about what type of parent we have until it is our turn to do the parenting, at which point we run with what we think is best. This may or may not be the same style our parents used with us, or the style their parents used with them. But it’s also about the time we realize how much we are just the same as they were. Not in all areas. I could focus on the negatives all day, but instead I will tell you that my dad taught me how to be an empathetic parent. He taught me how important mental health is, both for my children as well as for myself. He taught me how important it is to be independent. My dad taught me to exercise my brain. My dad taught me how to slow down for those rare minutes you get with people you barely see. My dad taught me to be quick witted. My dad taught me how valuable a life is. My dad taught me to love my family. And so, to his family…

Aunt Pasty:

Your brother loved you. He got a real kick out of your youthful soul. He adored the art you created and always spoke so admirably of you. Recently, he told me how much you had helped him. He loved spending that time with you. He would often fall asleep in one of his chairs, but he knew you were there and it made him feel safe and loved. I know it’s easy to feel guilt or anger, but it’s important to remember that we did not cause my dad’s death and no amount of energy spent on those emotions will bring him back or change what his life was. There were great times. We can put our energy into those memories. Or else steam mopping the floor.

Mike, Jenn, and Eric:

Collectively, you all have been in my dad’s life for somewhere around 40 years. See? I can math. Ish. Coincidentally this is the age of his oldest child, so this makes you his honorary children. You are on the team of people who have done more for my dad in those times when the three of us couldn’t. You have driven him places, helped him up off the floor, brought him pants, cleaned up his messes, and gave him gifts that he absolutely treasured.

Jenn, you sat and spoke with him when all he needed was someone. You gave him laughs and you gave him grandchildren. You gave him purpose.

Mike, I told you this before, but you sat with him during so many trips to the emergency room, you began to recognize the nursing staff, and realized they certainly remembered him. And there were far more times I know you weren’t going for him, but for your wife and for me.

Eric, I was remembering the time I introduced you to my dad. I told you prior to your meeting that when you met him, you were to shake his hand with a firm grip, even if you thought it would hurt the guy. I remember the look on my Dad’s face as he gave a side smile and a, “Nice shake.” This is the top compliment my Dad could ever give. He had no idea I told you beforehand.

Kristen and Andy:

Dad loved you and admired your brains, even when he didn’t understand your driving force. He was so proud of you both and all your achievements. He loved that you were both his family and you gave him more family to love and watch grow. He would call me and talk with me for hours about all the things you had both done or were doing. He was proud of your family values. He was proud of your faith. He was proud of your work. It made him feel young and strong to hear about it all. He would not have been around as long as he was if he didn’t have his children. I know we’re all feeling sorry for dad’s death, though there is nothing we can do to change anything. What we can take from this is to keep one another around. We can love our lives, even though this has made us think deeply about our own mortality. We have learned to not grieve our own deaths, but rather to live each day the best we know how.

Eli, Jake, Rowan, Ellie, and Selah:

Your grandpa loved you more than his bank collection, stamp collection, and miniature collection. In fact, he loved you more than Christmas and probably even more than Pepsi. He loved hearing everything you had to say to him and enjoyed just having you around. My charge to you guys is to listen hard to those boring stories you hear from those generations older than you and cherish them. Listen to those older than you tell you stories about the things that matter to them and learn from them. Ask them questions. Engage them in conversation. Record their stories if they let you. Watch your parents and your family interact with one another and learn how to love the way they do. Watch your parents care for their parents and watch them care for their grandparents. But also listen to those younger than you. Listen to each other and take care of each other. Spend time together and fill your houses with laughter and wit. When you feel sad, ask your parents for a Grandpa story. We’ve probably got a few tucked away.

And to my dad:

It never feels right to lose someone. It never feels like the right time. People have looked at me and mentioned they knew you had had a difficult time lately. It all seems so completely unrelated to the way you died, though it makes sense. Your heart just couldn’t take it anymore. But what’s more important than how you died is those positive ways you lived. You lived your life with emotion. You lived with wit. You lived your life with love for those whom you considered your village. You recognized things you loved, and you sought them out. You kept your most important tangible things in front of you where you could see them. You found joy in conversation.

I hope you have all the Pepsi, ho dongs, wang dangs, ding hos, and chocolate cookies you could want. I hope someone has taught you that the translation of “For real cuz” is not in fact “that’s right my relative.” I hope your vegetable soup is always cold and that you have enough ice cubes to add to make it colder. I hope you don’t have any more hangnails on your toe or fall and break your ribs. I hope Grandpa gave you and Grandma back your Q-tips, or at least confessed to you where on earth he hid them. I hope the volume of anything doesn’t require you to stick your fingers in your ears. I hope you don’t need to spray any spiders with cans of ladies’ deodorant. Lettuce and tomatoes, roll! I hope you can retire the loudest snap of your fingers I have ever heard in my life. I hope you get to hold my babies for me, and I hope you met up with Bones again. I hope your little white cooler with the orange lid is always fully stocked. I hope there’s a place for cute little children to color with permanent paint markers on the sidewalk and no need for balsa wood yard sticks to tap on the floor or break on anybody’s back end. I hope you found my People blanket-that thing has got to be up there by now, right? I hope you have the opportunity to eat green peppers again, and that you don’t need so many garbage bags. I hope blood sugar doesn’t exist for you anymore. I hope you’re driving a 55 Chevy. I hope where you are it’s Christmas every day. I hope no one forces you to go spelunking or drive down a very windy mountain road. I hope you know that I have no regrets for our relationship. I have only memories. And also, some invented memories. And Dad, I hope you got you one of those.

Love until later,
Heidi
xoxox