Dad's Eye View

 

A man I greatly respect suggested I write about how my dad might feel about losing his vision and independence. Here's my attempt. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. I never thought I’d have to ask my daughter to fix a simple plumbing problem. Goddamn eyesight is shit. I’m lucky I can still see well enough to know when to stop wiping my ass.

            My independence is gone. I had to stop driving over two years ago and that was really the capper. I can’t drive to take my dog hiking, can’t drive to the lakes to fish, can’t run errands on my own schedule. Every once in a while, I still take my truck the back way to the post office so I can feel the steering wheel under my fingers, and remember what it feels like to be independent, if only for 5 minutes. I figure Barney Fife won’t pull me over on the back roads of Glide. Thank God my daughter moved down here. I hated that it took losing her husband to do it, but I don’t know where I’d be without her. I hated imposing on my neighbors for doctor appointments and grocery shopping. I know they didn’t mind, but it chapped my ass to have to ask.

            It seems like yesterday when Jill was calling me to come over and unplug her drain, or help get her car running. Hell, it seems like yesterday when I watched the nurse bring her out of the delivery room, all wet and looking like a hairy little monkey. I never thought I’d ever be asking for her help. All I wanted in that moment was to protect her for the rest of my life.

            I keep thinking about that awful day in El Paso over 20 years ago when that lying sack of shit hurt my daughter so badly I was sure she’d never recover. If I could have found him that day, I swear I would have killed him. But my girl is tough as nails and she survived it. I don’t know how. I couldn’t have. But she has always been stronger than I am.

            She survived watching her husband die, too. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t relate to how much she missed, and still misses, him. When her mother died, I didn’t mourn. I didn’t exactly do a dance, but what a goddamn relief to be free. Between the years of abuse and the last few years of caregiving, I was done. I wish I’d chosen a better mother for my daughter. I would have left her decades earlier, but I know she’d have made sure I ever saw Jill or Brian again, and I couldn’t take that chance.

            When Jill married John, I asked him to take care of her. When I saw him for the last time before he died, he said, “I did my best, now I’m giving her back to you.” I couldn’t let Jill see me break down, but I couldn’t wait to get on the train back to Oregon so I could be alone with my thoughts. I never thought Jill would settle down with anyone like she did with John. She was a bit of dingbat with men until she found him.

            Now here we are, me almost blind, taking cancer meds that have shitting castrated me, and Jill under my bathroom sink with a screwdriver. I’m handing her tools while she tells me how I can help from the sideline. I don’t know how someone who has always equated his manhood with how much I could fix, how many cars I could repair, or how much money I made, can still feel like a man when I can’t do any of that now. What the cancer meds haven’t castrated, my eyes have finished off. I had to call Jill yesterday to make a doctor’s appointment for me because I couldn’t see to look up the number and dial the goddamn phone.

            I’m grateful she has my sense of humor and not her mother’s. At least we can laugh when I can’t find the dog turds in the yard, or can’t find the fucking lumber yard I thought was in Myrtle Creek, but turned out it was in Winston. All I need is dementia on top of blindness and cancer. We both got a good laugh when I said if it was on the left side of the road, we were shit out of luck because out of my two shitty eyes, my left one is really shot. We laugh that the blind guy still has to back up the truck and trailer because she can’t back up a trailer worth a shit. That’s my fault. All those years of hauling horses I really should have taught her that skill. Knowing Jill, when the day comes she has to do it, she’ll nail it like she always does. I’m so damn proud of all she’s done. Nothing has ever stopped her.

            I’m so goddamn mad that she inherited this shitty eye disease. I hoped she had escaped the Henricksen curse of macular degeneration. I hope with the treatments they now have that weren’t available to me, she won’t have to go down the same road I have. She doesn’t have a daughter who will drive her everywhere, read her mail and pay her bills. At least we both laugh at her role of “Seeing Eye Daughter.”

            Most days I don’t let it all get to me. I putz around my yard and do what I can with the eyesight I have left. I built a fence last month but had to ask the neighbor for some help with putting on some brackets. It’s hard finding projects to keep myself busy that don’t require good vision. And I don’t have the stamina I once did. I guess at 85, I shouldn’t expect to, but in my head I’m still 35. On the days it does get to me, I feel like a burden. I never wanted anyone to have to take care of me, so I’m determined to keep whatever independence I have left. Jill tries not to step in too much, but goddamn do I get mad sometimes when she tries to help. Sometimes I feel like she’s treating me like a child. I might be blind as a mole, but I can still think and make decisions for myself.

            I guess I should be happy she was paying attention all those times when she was the one handing me the tools, and that she knows how to fix shit like her old man used to do. I haven’t told her yet that I need her help replacing the faucet in the kitchen.