What was I saying about omens?
So I am back at home in New York now and feeling as always two ways about it. The upside is I'm at home with my cat. That feels good. The downside is that it feels like my vacation is over without anything happily remarkable occuring. Always next year I suppose. But I did want to relate what happened to me today.
I awoke at around 7, a little early considering I did not get to bed until 1 am or so. It turns out I was woken by the sound of my father falling down although it felt like I actually woke up an instant before he fell (doesn't it always happen this way?) My father, an elderly gent, has had a mild cold the last few days (the ailment precluded his full participation in his birthday celebrations). As a result he has been rather weaker than usual. This morning, needing to use the bathroom, he fell getting out of bed and could not get up. My Mom found that she could not him up either so she came and got me out of bed to help.
If an elderly person is on the ground and they are too heavy for you to lift directly into bed (and they are not completely comatose or otherwise incapacitated), this is how you get them up: 1)Pull their arms so as to lift them into a sitting position. 2)Get the individual to then turn on their side and bend their knees. 3)Pull them up to a kneeling position. 4)Supporting them, get them to lift one leg so their foot is flat on the floor and their knee is raised. Using yours and their combined strength, pull them to a standing position.
This, at least, is the strategy my Mother took this morning. I presume she has devoted a fair amount of thought to the process. It was as sensible an action as any I could conceive in such a moment. I might mention that my Father had sustained deep bruises on two or three parts of his body. He had a gash on his scalp that was bleeding and, had it been you or I with this wound, would most likely have received a few stitches.
My father is too heavy for me to pull directly onto his feet. I do pull him into a kneeling position. I lean forward to raise him up and my face comes close to his head. When he is on his knees and I stand up straight, I realize blood from his scalp is smeared down my face. Has this happened to you? Have you gone to help your father and ended up with his blood on you? How long has it been for me or you, since we have had anyone's blood on us other than our own?
Once in the kneeling position, he is able to lean over the bed and use his arms (along with my exertions) to pull himself back onto the bed. Dragging himself forward, his boxer shorts (I wear boxer shorts) are pulled down. He is cognizant of this, and somewhat embarassed, but the situation is not quickly corrected so that I have a good number of moments to contemplate his butt crack. Now fully onto the bed, we urge him to roll over onto his back. And then he momentarily loses control of his bowel and soils his underwear and the sheets.
With the combined help of my Mother and I and a wheeled walker, we are able to get my father on his feet toot suite and into the bathroom across the hall and onto the toilet so he can comfortably relieve himself. I pull the fitted sheet off the bed and replace it with a clean one. Luckily the mattress pad and other linens are unsoiled still. I retreat to the family room (five feet away) while my father completes his business and my Mom attempts to wipe him and wash him before returning him to bed. The smell of shit is rather strong. I note that it actually smells alot like my shit. I suppose that everyone's shit smells more or less the same, once you take into account differences in diet, yet I have not had an opportunity to think about the issue in such... depth. As the smell dissipates I realize that the smell of nursing homes is mostly composed of a faint shit smell. Maybe with a little clorox mixed in, but mostly faint shit. I had always figured there was an equal amount of other odors (such as urine and vomit) contributing to the atmosphere of such places but here plain old shit fading away seems to come pretty close. You learn a new thing every day I guess.
There, in the morning, I think of Nietzsche's line "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." I think that the abyss and my Father's butt crack are close to being the same thing and maybe this is why God punished the sons of Noah for looking upon their father's nakedness. What was my alternative?
So I ask you friends. Am I mean spirited? Is writing this down in a public forum somehow low? Abasing? Where should I place these thoughts since I cannot banish them? To whom does this mortification of the flesh, this infirmity in old age, come as a surprise? Can you know this thing before living it? Tell me.
So that was my Christmas vacation. It began with a decapitated pigeon and ended with my Father's butt crack, with a chenille throw in between.
posted by Abe @ 12:03 AM
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