The last day I saw my dad walking and talking was Monday, January 18th, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of 2021.
Mom let me know that dad had requested cherry pie on Saturday, so I made some up, and had Rich drive us down to deliver it on Sunday. When we arrived, I noticed that the driveway hadn’t been cleared, which I found suspicious, but the truth was evident when we went inside and found mom and dad sitting in the basement. The John Deere was in the garage without the blade on, and I know dad had told me that he was going to put the blade on to clear whatever snow we had.
The roads on the way down were not good that Sunday, and while there wasn’t a ton of snow, it was so cold and the wind speed caused horrible drifting, so visibility was limited. Once I had taken a look at dad, I sort of bet against him getting the ambition to put the blade on the JD and at that time, I asked mom to try to keep dad from going out to work on it because of the cold. I asked dad to just let Rich and I come down in the morning and put the blade on for him. We promised that we wouldn’t do anything but put the blade on, if he would just let us. Mom made some comment that they would probably just stay inside that day due to the windchill. We left and made a plan to come back once Rich got off work that next day.
Rich and I headed down my parents’ house early that morning and found that there had been no snow scooped, which was a relief, but in that same vein, a worry because that just isn’t like mom and dad to not have their walks scooped after even a small snow, and I know that mom had planned to leave that day to visit her sister, so she would need a good path out.
Rich looked for the parts to the blade, while I started scooping snow to make a path to the garage; Mom came out and started gearing up to scoop as well. I guess the pandemic was good for somethings, as she put a mask on her face while she scooped. Mom said dad was resting in the basement, and Rich went down to talk to him about putting the blade on the mower. He told Rich to go ahead, that mom wouldn’t be happy if someone didn’t get it done. Then dad went back downstairs, and Chris went to work getting the blade on the mower while mom and I scooped the walk and the stairs up to the upper deck. As we were cleaning off the upper deck of their split-level home, we noticed dad had come out to “help” Rich in the garage. Suddenly, we heard the mower start up and we saw Dad maneuvering it to get out of the garage. The first thing we noticed was that dad didn’t have a coat on, or socks. The next thing we noticed was that he was struggling to get the mower out of the garage. His pickup was parked too close to the garage door for him to easily back out, but of course, this is dad we’re talking about, so he snaked that mower around till it practically bent in a curve and he made it out around that pickup without moving it.
Once out of the garage, dad tried to blade the driveway, but as soon as he went to put the blade up to shake the snow off, he killed the mower. Rich and I had been not far away, shoveling the end of the drive, when dad got off the mower and said something to Rich, then went back toward the house. At some point, I had noticed that dad didn’t even have socks on. He was just out there in his jeans and tennis shoes.
Rich got on the mower and went on about pushing snow off the driveway into piles on the west side. When he had cleared the spot, dad got in the pickup and started to back up into the street. I had walked the half block over to our pickup and was too far away to do anything except start walking and asking mom what was happening. Mom was standing in the middle of the street beside the truck talking to dad, who was now backed up into the neighbor’s ditch trying to get free from the snow pile created when the city crews cleaning the streets. His tires were spinning, and I was concerned for mom’s safety, as she was standing on a snow and iced covered street while a person who could barely walk and had been very ill was driving a vehicle on those same ice- and snow-covered roads.
Mom didn’t seem to be worried until he actually drove off. Then she said she hoped he didn’t hurt anyone. I understand her thoughts, but dang, why didn’t she holler at him or tell him not to drive? Why did she just stand there and let him drive off?
I prayed in the street, Rich finished blading the driveway, then we put the mower up and said goodbye to mom. I hugged her and told her to go inside, and we would talk later, then Rich and I took off to go back home and get our own driveway and walks scooped.
I noticed that I had a cough while we were shoveling, but it didn’t surprise me, because I was outside in cold weather; so initially, I thought nothing of it. Thursday evening, I had helped my cousin by taking her boys to Tai Kwan Do and by Friday, I couldn’t taste anything. After Rich told me I was silly, he realized he couldn’t taste anything either, so we had a Friday night date night and went up to the quick care for him to be tested. He was the only one they would test since he is higher risk with his blood pressure. At any rate, we got the news around 3am, and so around 6, I called my cousin to let her know that Rich had tested positive for the Omicron variant, and that’s when she told me that my aunt had passed away just a few hours earlier.
It was then my job to tell all my mom’s siblings and in addition, I had to tell mom that we had the variant and had exposed her to it as well. I expected the worst, and I pretty much got what I expected. I knew mom was planning to host her siblings when her sister died, so that threw a wrench into all of it. Leave it to me.
I always ruin things for mom.
Her siblings decided they needed to go ahead and meet, that I hadn’t technically been diagnosed with the variant, and the exposure happened only outside (that Monday), so none of them were really worried about it. I couldn’t help mom get ready for her sibling get together; the only thing I could do was stay home and take care of myself and my own family.
Sunday and Monday passed pretty quickly with us just mostly lounging around the house since we were still under the pandemic protocol, so Rich couldn’t go to work for 14 days and the kids couldn’t go into any public buildings either. By Monday night, only one week after the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day snowblade incident, my youngest sister was calling, telling me that she had gone to help mom with dad and that they were heading to the emergency room, and she would keep me in the loop.
The last day I saw my dad he was sick, and no one knew it. He was walking, talking, and driving around, but his brain was sick and one week later he would be unable to even hold his own body upright.
Momma Rich's 