My dad is the best dad in the universe.
No, really. He is. More on him in future talks. Right now I’m still in shock from what I walked into yesterday at his apartment.
As I am the youngest of 5 and the only girl I am obviously his favorite daughter and it shows. However, when my firstborn, Andrew, came along you would have thought my dad had completely forgotten about his 4 defenders and 1 shining goalie. We kind of became flat Stanleys for him because when Andrew arrived it’s as though the color came back into his life in an instant. Andrew was the sparkle in my dad’s eyes that had been lost when my mother died in 1971. With Andrew around and 2 years later when my youngest, Alec, was born my dad lived again. He would do anything for those boys. Anything. But Andrew really was the brilliant piercing sparkle. And that sparkle lasted for 22 years, 6 months and 19 days. Don’t get me wrong. He loves his other 7 grandkids and even Alec is so very special but the truth is there was something about Andrew and it is undeniable. Andrew touched him like no one has ever touched him including his favorite daughter. When Andrew died the little bit that was left of my dad’s shattered heart turned into dust. He went downhill quick and exactly one year to the day of Andrew dying my dad had a hemorrhagic stroke and almost didn’t make it. I spent a week sleeping in a chair at the hospital with him. Four weeks later he was back home but this time he went to “The Gardens”. Memory care.

Papi has been in The Gardens since June of 2019 making small progress and I have been visiting him daily, helping with everything. Everything. Hardest thing to live through other than the death of a child is becoming a “parent” to your own parent and watching them fade. To have to endure both things simultaneously is honestly enough to send anyone to the bin. I don’t know how I keep going. But here I am.

Yesterday when I walked into his room I was actually shocked because Bloomberg wasn’t on the TV. He watches Bloomberg 24/7. He was a numbers guy and although he can’t do his math any longer, he knows green is good and red is bad and he watches it all day long. So when I heard music coming from his TV I had to see if it was a commercial or something. It wasn’t. It was Jewel in concert on AXS. My dad doesn’t watch AXS nor does he listen to music and much less to Jewel. He wouldn’t know that I loved Jewel and the song Hands was a favorite of mine and that I played it in the car with both my boys for years when they were little.

“If I could tell the world just one thing

It would be that we’re all ok

And not to worry because worry is wasteful

And useless in times like these

I will not be made useless

I won’t be idled with despair

I will gather myself around my faith

For light does the darkness most fear”

Jewel

I don’t believe it was an accident that I walked into this yesterday. This song, back in the day, used to make me cry and I would think “heartache came to visit me but I knew it wasn’t ever after” and felt so much sorrow that the tears would just flow. I would think about the sadness of losing and not ever really knowing my own mother yet also knowing that the immeasurable love I felt for my beautiful grandmother and my 2 precious children was a true blessing and the tears would flow. How true that heartache can visit but it doesn’t have to stay there all alone forever. We can allow love and happiness to come in again and I did. Not knowing that the universe had this other future sorrow in store for me just a mere 16 years (or so) later that would bring me to brink of wanting to die myself. Not knowing that I’d be tested again on my belief in hope and internal balance. I knew even back then that every little thing we have, feel, touch and smell is a fleeting thing but back in those days I would cry because I knew at that moment that I was blessed to be able to love again. I was a mother and my children allowed me to truly love again. Not knowing how devastating a loss I would meet again. I have been talking a lot recently about my frustration with having to take care of my dad and not be able to just run away to the beach for a couple of days for some grieving time. I know this may sound selfish and it may offend some but I feel completely robbed. Robbed of my beautiful child. Robbed of my happiness again. Robbed of my time and lastly robbed of my memory of my dad who was the strongest man I ever knew. I feel robbed of my time to grieve. I feel horrible.
All.
The.
Time.

And then Jewel is singing her songs on AXS in my dad’s room yesterday and he’s just sitting there with his eyes on the TV and I know exactly what is happening here and why. I smile to myself and proceed to talk.

“Hey Andrew. I feel you. I know you want me to pay attention to the song again Andrew-baby. I know you see how I am slipping these days and turning towards the numbing agent of vodka again and you, of all the souls out there, know where this leads. I see you, Andrew.” (Mama! Live your life that the fear of death can not enter your heart.)

“We will fight, not out of spite for someone must stand up for what’s right
Cause where there’s a man who has no voice there ours shall go singing”

Those lyrics never touched me until yesterday. It’s as though Andrew were in the room talking. That was him. Andrew’s soul was the “Stand up for what’s right and sing for the ones who have no voice” kind. He was there to remind me what I already knew and was beginning to lose focus of:

“My hands are small, I know,
But they’re not yours they are my own
But they’re not yours they are my own
And I am never broken
In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters”

How could I not do the most for the dad who did the most for me and my children? How. I am not cut from that type of cloth. I will live my life that the fear of death will not enter my hear because in the end only kindness matters.

“Thanks, Andrew-baby. You’re my first baby!!” (Oh mama. You’re my second mama)