The Sounds of Silence

A “Guru” Reviewer Considers

Life at Home, Alone  
An Essay

Last Saturday morning, I found my father on the kitchen floor.  

He was conscious, but he couldn’t recall how or when he fell, but I have the horrible feeling he was there all night.

For some reason, he almost always waits until I go to bed for the night, then he goes to bed. I watch TV in his bedroom while he watches TV all day in the living room—except for when reading the daily newspaper in the kitchen or washing our dishes every couple of days.

After two days of being bedridden and his legs in pain, I called an ambulance. They took him to Meadville Medical Center, where he stayed until Friday until they released him to a nearby facility for therapy.

He’s still there—though his legs no longer hurt him. I plan to talk with his physical therapist to see if he can be released.  He’s miserable there but first we need to see if he can walk by himself, or, if he’ll need the assistance of a walker.  Or wheelchair.

In the meantime, I’m home alone. Unless you count the multiple cats I adopted while running a mail route until recently. They’re good company and they make me laugh, which is good, because I feel as if I don’t have much to be happy about when it comes to my father.  And me.  

I moved back home in 2015, just after my mother died of Alzheimer’s complications. My father was in his late 70’s, slowing down, but still mobile. I tell people I moved back home to help with my father, a family obligation, but that wasn’t necessarily true. 

My full-time retail career in Pittsburgh was coming to a close, with me for some reason on the outs with the manager, who found any excuse to write me up about my performance.  I knew my days were numbered there.

I was tired of Pittsburgh, anyway.  It was a lonely town.  I lived there for about 12 years and the only friends I had were coworkers.

Another reason to move back was that I felt my father would eventually need assistance, and my aimless brother, who lived with him, would be of no aid.  How do I know? When my mother had Alzheimer’s Disease, he never lifted a finger to care for her, leaving everything to my father.

Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but since he created more chaos than anything, when he died during the Covid-19 pandemic, I was more relieved than mournful.

Then as now, it’s just my father and myself. I never found anyone to marry, I never fathered any children.

It’s a solitary life. 

Though it’s natural, my father at 87 is getting more and more forgetful and it troubles me.

When asked by a paramedic who was placing him in the ambulance, what day it was, he answered correctly. When she asked him who the president was, though, I was thunderstruck.  

He didn’t know.  

Baffling for me because he reads the daily newspaper, watches NBC Nightly News every evening and is glued to Fox News several hours a day.

“Biden! It’s the guy they hate,” I wanted to chastise him, but didn’t.  “How do you not know that?” 

But he was in pain and going to the hospital. There were bigger fish to fry.

Currently unemployed of my own accord (A liberating birthday present to myself), I’m able to visit him every day around 1 p.m. 

We don’t have that much to talk about.  I ask him how he’s feeling, bring him snacks that he doesn’t eat and puzzle books he doesn’t use.

He asks how are things at home.

What can I say? I miss him.  I tell him that. I fib and tell him the felines miss him, too, but after all, how could anyone really tell?

After each visit, I come home and clean the house.

Why?  I ask myself.

I think it has something to do with orderliness, something I CAN control at home, unlike my father’s ever-weakening condition as he approaches another birthday in August.

I clean because I worry about finances. Can I eventually support a house and household (Population 1) and still pay  for extravagances as student and car loans, I ask myself in the silence of the house?

It’s lonely here.  

The living room and its rocking chair where my father sat for hours, is empty. The nonstop television is off.  

But I revived it.

To cure the quiet, I turn on the living room TV AND the bedroom TV. Somehow, it’s comforting.  

But there’s one thing I really miss.

When I would leave home on assignment and be gone until after dark, my father would always turn the porch light on for me. I always forgot, but he, even with his memory fading, would make sure I’d have some light outside and not trip in the dark.

Recently I knew I’d be gone late and did turn the porch light on. 

When I reached home, I was glad I remembered to do it, but still, it wasn’t the same.

My father, who I’ll always want to remember him as a young, vibrant man, before he had to get eyeglasses like everyone else in our family, before his hair turned gray, before his skin began sagging on his face and body, won’t live forever, of course, I know this, but it’s still hard to accept. 

I know I won’t be here, forever, either.  Sometimes in the deep, dark hours of the night at my age of 60, I wonder who’ll live in this, the only home I’ve ever known, after I am gone.

In turn, will they ever wonder who lived there before them?

I hope my father returns soon to our home, whether using a walker or wheelchair, he’ll be here, and to me, that’s all that matters.  

And I’ll be here, too.

And maybe, hopefully, next time I have a night assignment for ErieCulture.Guru and I forget to turn on the porch light, he’ll turn it on for me.

My father.

Because even in that simple act, that’s love.

And I love him dearly for it. 

***GG

END